I wonder how many members of the church, NOMs and non-NOMs alike, fit into this category - that is, they maintain a temple recommend for reasons other than a genuine passion for "redeeming the dead." I have no doubt that the vast majority of recommend holders would cite dead-redeeming as their primary motivation but I suspect that most, if they were entirely honest with themselves, maintain their recommend primarily as: a) an elite membership card, b) a marriage attendance ticket and, c) a sign of "worthiness" and parchment of warding against gossip and raised eyebrows.
I have a recommend because it is important to Mrs. Hagoth to know that I CAN go to the temple with her, even though I seldom do. I suspect most NOM recommend holders are in the same boat. She is disappointed every other year when I remind her that they probably won't give me one this time, and they really shouldn't because I don't play by the rules. She recognizes that those rules are mere technicalities. Somehow I have squeaked by purely due to leadership roulette, but our current bishop seems to be stiffening up lately. He refused a recommend to THE most charitable, remarkable, Christian lady in our ward because she isn't entirely certain that Thomas Monson is a prophet.
I believe that, in a rational world, my devotion to my wife and my willingness to play along should be adequate reason to keep a recommend. Well, that plus the hundreds of thousands of dollars of elite membership fees I have paid to the church, no questions asked, over my lifetime.
I have given my share of nuanced answers in the past, but with each subsequent recommend interview I become less and less nuanced. I still have a year left on the current subscription but I don't see any way I can limbo under the bar again considering the following conditions, each of which is by itself adequate grounds of recommend refusal:
-I do NOT believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God.
-I do NOT believe the church of Jesus Christ was restored in these the latter days (and if it was it sure as hell isn't the modern LDS church)
-I try to remain open to a concept of some sort of God, but I do NOT have a testimony of Elohim of Kolob.
-I DO drink tea, coffee, and occasional alcoholic devil's brews
-I do NOT pay any tithing
-I do NOT always wear garments - particularly when mowing the lawn
-I DO associate with persons and groups who are antagonistic toward the church (love you guys)
-I do NOT strive to attend all of my meetings
When I look back over this list I see that there is not a single thing that, by anyone else's standards, would imply that I am not a good and "worthy" person; I am actually more involved in church activity than most members of other religions, despite my non-believing status. It's all cultic in-group signalling. None of it actually means anything outside of the group-think environment in which it is administered. BUT somehow I'm a good guy from the church-centric point of view as long as I can manage to do just the right tap dance to get the recommend (because there's still hope for me?), but a bad guy if I don't.
I'm on the verge of rambling now, but I just wanted to throw these thoughts out there to see how others feel about the general wackiness and confusion about what temple recommends really are, what they actually mean, and why they are so important.