“I want to be able to think that chazal were great people – and not because my tenth-grade teacher or a Rav said so, but because I myself think so based on his works.”
So what we’d be if for whatever reason you start to learn Gemara and it makes no sense to you or you? Are they suddenly not so great because you don’t like or understand what they are talking about? I really think that the above sentence of yours is very problematic. Chazal don’t need your approval. They don’t need Rav Chaim Kannievskies approval either. Most people will never learn Zohar and shouldn’t. Does that mean that to them or to you it shouldn’t be enough that they know Rav Shimon bar Yochai is great? We don’t learn Gemara to find out how great Abaya and Rava were. That’s just absurd.