Excellent explanation. It seems from R. Yosef’s teshuva that blindly following rabbinic authority is a very limited rule indeed!
One must follow rabbinic authority on a particular point despite his knowing that the rabbinic ruling is erroneous only if:
(1) The ruling is issued by the Sanhedrin itself. Only the Sanhedrin has absolute and final authority to decide questions of Jewish law and silence dissenting opinions, as is clear from the laws of zaken mamreh. We might even go so far as to say that only those ruling issued from the lishchas hagazis are subject to this requirement to obey. The rulings of every other Rav, no matter how great, may then be disregarded as inncorrect. Al achas kamah v’kamah, the rulings of some Rabbonim (even “gedolim”) need not be followed when a contrary position is maintained by other authorities.
(2) The ruling was issued in direct response to a question posed to and discussed adequately by the Sanhedrin, and is applied only to factual situation that are virtually identical to the one posed by the original question. One need not follow even the Sanhedrin’s erroneous rulings in new or different cases where that rule could be logically applied but to which the original rule did not directly speak.