Yes, but in the context of the passage that was quoted, that was specifically about the term “samaṇabrāhmaṇā” which is used to generically refer to religious practitioners such as “ascetics and brahmans” and not how different Buddhist practitioners may choose to practice. I would think any Buddhist practioner calling themselves a “samaṇa” isn’t probably understanding what the middle path truly is, but without understanding proper context I would withhold judgement.
As I understand it, the Buddha himself did not use the term “samaṇa” to refer to himself, although others did.
As for the rest of your post, I hope you don’t mind, but I will refrain from commenting. It seems you are trying to say something, but in a very generic way about various “dangers” but I am not sure how these dangers would be relevant to me as I don’t feel I am practicising any of the “dangers” you seem concerned about. I don’t know any of these “secular Buddhists” or “iconoclastic teachers” you are referring to, or what their views may or may not be, and I am not sure how any of that is relevant to my own situation. I generally focus on reading the suttas and I try to avoid being influenced by others.
I believe people are free to hold whatever views they want - whether I agree with those views or not. As I mentioned before, at the end of the day everyone’s path will be different. I don’t necessarily hold my views to be correct, indeed, I change them as I understand more and more.
But I don’t agree that “… corrective power to preserve orthodoxy in doctrine and right view” is a good thing, in fact very much the opposite. I don’t believe the Sangha generally preserves or holds right views. In any case, there is no single agreed view. As we all know, Buddhism is divided into many sects each of which hold their views to be right and other views to be wrong. So clearly, orthodoxy has not been preserved because we can’t even agree what it is.
If the various sects were in fact holding right views, then we would have lots of arahants today, and we don’t have a single confirmed one, so clearly whatever views are held by various practitioners today, they are objectively “wrong”, and have been for centuries.
I am not sure I actually made any comment along those lines. Perhaps you can quote exactly where I made these “several comments”? Otherwise it is hard to defend something I didn’t say.
What I did say, quoting myself, is:
That’s all they are, observations.
I also wish you the very best in your journey, and hope you will find it in your heart to forgive those “secular Buddhists” or “iconoclastic teachers” that you seem very concerned about. Although I generally try not to be influenced by others, I do pay particular attention to significantly different views from mine - they challenge my thinking and cause me to re-evaluate what I think is right or wrong. As you rightly say, it’s important to have one’s views “scrutinised”, and the best way to do so is to compare them with radically different viewpoints.