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He didn’t go confer with any of the other apostles.

That is not what Paul says, read Galatians.

They conferred nothing upon him.

They gave him their hand in fellowship and because of that, those who were suspicious of him accepted him. Read Scripture to know the truth.

Those “pillars in the community” who were “highly esteemed” Paul said “made no difference” to him—they added nothing to his message but acknowledged his position as an apostle.

And it was Peter he had to publicly spank for being a hypocrite when he gave in to those who were agitating for Gentile believers to Judaize.

True enough, because, GASP!, Peter was not perfect. The point of that story is that Peter’s revelation was not wrong, Peter was not living up to it. Notice that Paul did not say that what Peter had declared about the Gentiles was wrong.

Geesh, read Scripture already.

They may have made no difference to Paul, but it made a difference to the people to whom Paul was preaching the good news. And, Paul knew that, it is why he went to them to receive their hand in fellowship, IOW, their approval.

And it was Peter he had to publicly spank for being a hypocrite when he gave in to those who were agitating for Gentile believers to Judaize.

True enough, because, GASP!, Peter was not perfect. The point of that story is that Peter’s revelation was not wrong, Peter was not living up to it. Notice that Paul did not say that what Peter had declared about the Gentiles was wrong.

Geesh, read Scripture already.

I am reading it, not reading into it a previously assumed and, what appears to be, a barely examined position, based on all the special pleading going on. No, Paul's initial description of everything having to do with anyone's approval is set out here in his initial salutation to the church at Galatia:

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man [that is, not the result of being the "the first example" of "apostolic succession"], but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead..."

A few verses later he reiterates this:

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it [so much for apostolic succession]; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

Then after three year, he spent a couple of weeks with Peter in Jerusalem and saw James at that time "to get acquainted," his words. After that he spent another fourteen years in his ministry before, in response to a revelation, he went back to meet with them again.

That you could read Paul's description of his meetings and the sarcastic descriptions of the people he met with 14 years later in Galatians 2:1-10 and say "They may have made no difference to Paul, but it made a difference to the people to whom Paul was preaching the good news. And, Paul knew that, it is why he went to them to receive their hand in fellowship, IOW, their approval" is mind-boggling. He had already started his churches over the previous fourteen years, going to build where no man had before built--therefore, not depending on the remainder of the Eleven to have sent out good vibrations back across time and space (where communication is no faster than a man can travel) to soften things up for him, as though as-yet-unbelieving Gentiles in Greece would care what some Christian Jews in a distant part of the world would say about Paul.