I think I sent you a private commo that was spoze to be public. Excuse me for the repetition.
The dogma of the Assumption does not touch on the question of Mary's natural death. So the lack of evidence of early thought that she did NOT die a natural death would have no determinative bearing on the dogma.
Ummm, scripture is all we have to go on, that we can be sure goes back to the apostles (if you're a believer, anyway). The Catholic Church began to invent all sorts of things along the way, starting very early on. I don't accept anything made up by men as being on equal basis with scripture.
This, like your characterization of Marian dogma and devotion as Mariolatry, skews the argument. I'm not going ot defend mariolatry, and if I thought Church traditions and dogma were just "made up by men" I'd look at them differently myself. You may not trust God's promise to His Church, and so you may find Scripture "all we have to go on". Certainly, if the teachings of the Church were just "inventions" I wouldn't rely on them either. But maybe they're not inventions.
The Doctrine of Papal infallibility is not about the virtue of Popes. It's about God's promise to guide His Church. You can get clear water from rusty pipes and earthen vessels can hold treasures. The pipes are still rusty, the vessels earthen. It's the old book-cover thing, or a variation on it.
One advantage of being careful about how you approach the controversy is that you may find (I don't know) what you are accepting which may be just as questionable as what what you currently cannot accept.
So much of Catholic doctrine relies on one questionably interpreted scripture, and one that usually does not harmonize with other scripture. Jesus is the real rock.