Sorry Nitocris, I didn´t get around to respond to your post earlier! But here are some thoughts anyway! :)

Man is Man everywhere and at all times isn´t he? Just how pious was the priesthood... good question, hehe! There must have been individuals ranging from your most dedicated, devoted, god-fearing hem-netjer to those acting out of greed for success, for recognition as beeing 'someone', a need to control... All those forces which make out battles for mankind everywhere on all levels. Many times circumstances decide for him. And those who have gained power do not want to give it up normally.

Yes the priesthood at Waset was powerful in the 18th Dynasty and due to the gifts of earlier kings. Later during the Third Intermediate civil war reigned with the high priests of Waset ruling the south of the land and the king ruling from the northern capital of Tanis (21st Dyn.). The highpriest Herihor ruled as a de facto pharaoh along with Ramesses XI for six years and even had his cartouche inscribed in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak. He was followed by three more highpriests likewize ruling from Waset alongside of the kings at Tanis. These families kept a sort of power balance by intermarriage relationships. This happened in the time when the heyday and glory of the Two Lands was on the decline.

To remove the name of an earlier ruler was a regular thing to do to legitimize one´s right to the crown and Akhenaten wasn´t the first one. Remember Hatshepsut? If his was a simple power struggle, I´m not sure, maybe it´s hazardous to call it simple when talking about Akhenaten though it may appear so. I´m not very much into that period so I´m not the one to say and the reflections about him are many and varied :) But certainly there was what we call political power games involved time and again, with motivation of various sorts taken from myths and deities . That happens, as we know, still today.

I think the main difference between us in the Western world and the ancient Egyptians, is the way we look at the world. To put it very simplistically, for them existence was by and through divine intervention, for us existence has natural causes and we seem to have put ourselves in the place of god.