How many freemasons I've met compared to how many someone else has met is completely besides the point. This isn't just about me either. There have been numerous posts on this thread, some commenting on negative experiences and others with positive impressions. All of those points of view are as valid as eachother. Personal experience as a freemason (or as the partner of one) is of course powerful as a personal testimony, but that needs to be counterbalanced by acknowledging the very human tendency to defend an organisation you have an investment in and derive benefit from in some way, like I said in my first post on that thread.
Although one of the difficulties of freemasonry is with the secret membership list, I have personally met High Court Judges, Council leaders and Councillors, Chief Executives of both private and public sector organisations, senior police officers, Queens Counsel, solicitors, Chairs of School Governing Bodies with responsibility for admissions (foundation schools) and Editors of Newspapers who were open about being freemasons. All men in positions of power. Several of those individuals have cheerfully agreed that when in junior positions in their organisations, they were attracted by the promise of getting ahead in their careers and in the days when an invitation or sponsor was necessary, had been reassured by that sponsor that it was a good career move.
As for your last question OneMoreChap my one and only personal experience (in that it affected me) of how someone who was subordinate in the lodge hierarchy to someone less powerful at work, was when two such individuals both reported to me at work. One was a middle manager who reported to me, with a junior manager reporting to him. A disciplinary issue arose that I expected the middle manager to deal with, but completely aberrant to his usual performance in this area, he was resisting tackling it. Eventually it came out that he had concerns because the junior manager was a) a fellow freemason at the same lodge and b) was more senior at that lodge. A wholly unacceptable conflict of interests. I have however spoken to other freemasons (some now retired) who have admitted that there were occasions when they turned a blind eye to a potential conflict or wrongdoing, because of the hierarchical politics at their lodges.
I accept as valid other people's experiences if they have never come across such conflicts of interest. Indeed some of the senior people I've referenced, as far as I know didn't do anything more unethical than use freemasonry for career advancement.
I understand why some of you are defending freemasonry and apart from what is genuine belief, your motivation for doing so. But I'd personally find your views much more credible if there wasn't an insistence that you know everything there is to know, that masonic lodges aren't attractive to men in power or seeking it, or that your organisation isn't vulnerable to corruption.