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Indeed - fair enough.
I don't entirely buy this line of argument. I don't think it's any better than VnutZ original statement you rejected.
The subject of the "atheist's wager" (or Pascal's, for that matter) isn't a matter of opinion. It's a matter of truth. No matter how much you trust someone, it doesn't change whether they know the truth of the question. In the case of Christianity (and all "faith" religions), your trust in your pastor has absolutely no bearing on whether Jesus existed or any of the relevant questions. This is because he's doing the same thing you are. He's relying on someone else, who's relying on someone else, all the way back for two thousand years.
Such a chain can only be as strong as its weakest link. If even one person misjudged the earlier steps in the chain, the whole thing collapses. And you have no way to even begin to judge the trustworthiness of most of the chain for yourself - they're too far back in time to know personally. The longer the chain, the weaker you have to judge it, regardless of the degree to which you trust the closest link.
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RE: How Quaint and a revisit of the Atheist Wager
that logic would quickly lead to justifying that Jews really ought to be exterminated
Yes, it could (emphasis on the "c").
I'm not sure why you're protesting this point, though. I didn't defend any and all qualifiers as being sufficient, I only noted such would be a step in the right direction. In other words, when something cannot be known individually, it may make sense to consider the beliefs of others. Determining which "others" are trustworthy and which aren't is, of course, the crucial issue - but to dismiss any and all appeal to outside knowledge as blind mob-following is misleading and inaccurate. (I'm not accusing you of doing so, but that's the point I'm making nonetheless.)
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