real terms, I saw them moonlighting just like non-SO staff members.<<

  Interesting - I only ever saw moonlighting by SO members on a very very
small scale and then only on occasion.

basement and being tortured in the RPF as anything short of a true
picture.<<

  I have seen a lot of the RPFs - in PAC, Flag, UK and EU and I did the
RPF at Flag - on no occasion, and I mean on no occasion did I ever see any
physical abuse.
  You said in your posting (and which I forgot to include above) that
someone could walk out of the RPF and blow - yep this is true but I think
on that score you miss out on some other aspects:
1) Married partners - should the person blowing tell his or her partner
they intend to go? If their partner is "true blue" they will report the
person to ethics for "handling" if they do not say anything they risk
losing their partner.
2) any kids? Collect the kids? Leave them and come back later?
3) Money for living expenses, travel? Most SO members have very little
money.
  Other ex-so members on ARS, I hope, can provide further background.
4) Peer pressure - in my experience (which, I hasten to add is not all
embracing by far) most who originally blow or leave are unhappy with their
current circumstances rather than being "anti-scientology" per se. First
off they have to get past the feeling that they are betraying their
friends and their group, they also have to overcome a lot of
indoctrination about themselves - for example by POLICY all "ex-SO
members" are officially (by the man himself) Degraded Beings (ie scum) -
when you have been folliwng that teaching, sometimes for years, it is hard
to overcome.

Lying? Well the first one would be "Scientology is compatible with other
religions" - this is utter rubbish as CST has admitted in their submission
to the IRS.
  Scientology doctrine in PR has a concept known as "The Acceptable Truth"
what that means is that if one considers that telling the whole truth
would be unacceptable either because it would outrage the recipient or
would make the church look bad then one has to find something that will
cover the bases and (and this is important)  cannot be proven to be not
true.
  An example of this would be "There is no church of Scientology in
Israel".
  In fact there is an org and its called a Religious Education Center
because calling it a church would cause it all sorts of problems.