Blue, you're at the top of your game on this thread. Learned a bit from you here.
While I don't think it can be denied that the early church held to Mary's perpetual virginity, that's just narrative as tradition, Tradition as narrative. It's the story the early Christians held to which probably was influenced by their intense persecution, coupled with near exponential absorption of converts who brought their past gods and goddesses with them. And once the narrative took root, to contradict it was to become an infidel. Most likely because of persecution and the need to stick together.
Men, fallible men, ran the church, decided what was orthodox, what was not. These men had philosophical predilections and blind spots, they had tastes and held to their own aesthetic, had the human disposition to be attracted to power. They were not immune to those things that all men wrestle with.
There will never be a historical search for Mary as there has always been for Jesus because Jesus is the Redeemer. Mary is NOT insignificant, far from it, but her significance is that she is in the upper echelon of those chosen by God among humans to bring His Will to fruition, as were blessed Moses and Abraham and David. Mary's Magnificat is one of the most beautiful prayers ever, harkening to the Psalms.
All the speculation about the Ark, the New Eve, is pure speculation. And it is remarkable that there is no Scriptural reference to her sinlessness, to say nothing of her being the mediatrix of all graces or the neck of the Body of Christ, etc. in any of the Gospels. Surely, if we were meant to invoke her as the ultimate entreaty to her Son, there would be some reference to it. You'd see it in the writings of Sts. Peter and Paul, but all you see in their writings is the preaching of Christ Crucified. The continual running to the Cross.
Herman Sasse wrote a piece back in the 50s concerning the deification of man via Mary and her state of perfection. He writes the following, and the rest is here for those interested.
The veneration of Mary at its very deepest essence, is finally the deification of man. In it man, who can not bear it that God alone, God's Son become man alone, is his Redeemer, thus places himself as his own co-redeemer. What this means and whence it leads is illustrated by the history of one of the most celebrated Marian churches of the west - the pope himself gives us this indication when he includes the temples dedicated to Mary in his proofs from tradition. In the place of an ancient pagan holy place - similarly in Rome the Santa Maria sopra Minerva - was raised in Paris the Cathedral Nostrae Dominae. In it Thomas Aquinas was promoted to Magister. In it the great teachers of scholasticism prayed and preached, who taught that amazing Catholic synthesis of nature and grace, reason and revelation, and human preparation for the reception of grace and divine redemption, that cooperation of the human will with divine grace, for which the Holy Virgin is the great paradigm. Is it an accident that in the same Church of Notre Dame, during the French Revolution, that religion was evidenced which since then has become the sharpest opponent of the Christian faith and a substitute for the faith of their fathers for many millions of men throughout the world: belief in man and his reason. At that time the Temple of Reason was raised up in the old Marian church, and in it was enthroned a not so holy "maiden" of the Parisian opera, as the "Goddess of Reason," and she let herself be marveled at in the speech for the occasion as a "Masterwork of nature." Did this fearful scene perhaps have a deeper meaning? Did it not demonstrate what perverse path man comes to when man is placed beside God, reason next to revelation, nature next to grace. On the day reason ejects revelation from the temple, man places himself on the throne of God and reveals, after he has rejected grace, his true nature. This is all possible in a Marian church. These possibilities lie dormant in the Church of Christ, and become reality when Christianity forgets that the Word of God shall establish articles of faith and no one else, not even and angel. Verbum solum habemus. We will hold to the Word of God.
Catholicism, for whatever reason was not able or willing to absorb the venerable and beautiful understanding of human sexuality that the Jewish patriarchs bequeathed us. I finally began reading the Song of Solomon and it is breathtakingly beautiful. Catholicism's view of sexuality and womanhood is more akin to Islam's, with Catholicism's being "off" (to put it kindly), and Islam's being extremely disturbed. IMO, Islam and Catholicism's nexus commences with this and proceeds to the application of it to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Luke 11:27 And it was done, when he had said these things, a woman of the company raised [up] her voice, and said to him, Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and blessed be the teats that thou hast sucked.
28 And he said, But yea blessed be they [And he said, Rather, blessed be they], that hear the word of God, and keep it.
The speculation of the New Ark and the New Eve does not comport with Luke's Scripture, and Luke was Mary's greatest Gospel fan.