Salam
Shia786, I don't think people here are interested in the truth. The best thing to do is to provide proofs of whatever you are going to present and then leave it that. These people think if they get the last word or reply no matter how illogical and irrational their responses, they won the debate.
They also avoid real issues that come to the heart of the problem.
Regarding Rijaal, it's all circular reasoning used to verify it. It's nothing but that at the end. Their scholars are reliable because they followed the righteous Salaf, the true salaf are reliable because they followed the righteous companions, and how do they know who is the righteous Salaf, it's through their scholars. And how do their scholars are worthy to be followed, it's due to them following the Salaf.
Aside from that, even their whole criteria were not circular reasoning. There is somethings to be asked:
1. Are their hadiths that have been authenticated and even at the level of tawatur that contradict Quran?
We have to check if the system we been passed actually passes us the truth. The litmus test is the Quran. I find there is authentic and tawatur hadiths in both Sunni and Shiite sources that contradict Quran.
So to me, our Rijaal has failed us. It was not that it was impossible to distinguish trustworthy from liar, it's just that we didn't do it right. Just as revelations before were not guarded, so to our ahadith are not guarded.
2. What do for salvaging the light of the words of Ahlulbayt that are left among us.
I suggest foremost letting hadiths give possible insight to Quran. That is to say, we say if this hadith is true, can we see the truth of it in Quran and can Quran verify it. I don't mean what is obviously in line with Quran. I mean what takes reflection and with sincere reflection, we begin to see themes or a woven Taweel in Quran through the hadith. I would give all such narrators "insight" tally.
If narrator never gives us any insight into Quran, this already tells you much. If a narrator narrates things that constantly contradict Quran, this tells you much. But if we make these tallies, we can realize who was the deceiving devil trying to pollute the water and we can tell who were the Rabbaniyoon trying to safeguard the truth of God's revelation.
I believe we can salvage what we have. Then for the things we neither can verify or disregard through Quran or reasoning, we will have made a tally system, and I believe it would be fair to use this tally system to trust which narrators and not to trust narrators for the truth.
Most of our narrators are "unknown" (majhool) does God want us to do away with all these narrators because we inherited from a people who didn't know them?
I want you to sincerely think about this issue.
In the past, people of past divine reminders abandoned the reminders slowly by this method of trusting certain people and then accusing others of lying.
We all know the "official" scriptures of Jews and Christians overall do not befit the Creator and the truth was lost over time.
The people that were entrusted these revelations followed leaders who were not appointed to God and they told them which scriptures they safeguared and to trust, and which not to.
I remind you that the Quran warns by the way of the past.
Moreover the traditions and Quran advise us to follow the truth and not conjecture. Ilmel rijaal at the at if it is accurate is best educated guess. It's not 100% unseen knowledge of who is trustworthy and who isn't.
The problem is even if it over all works, some deceivers can get by and some truthful people can be falsely accused.
And if all gives us is some increased probability of reliability, which we all know is the best case scenario in reality, than we ought to question, does God want us to be guessing what is right and wrong in his Shariah?
There are ahadith that judgement regarding God's religion cannot be possibility of maybe but be decisive.
The Quran also says we were commanded to say about God nothing but the truth and enjoin the truth upon one another.
This cannot be done by guess work and conjecture. It has to be done through insight.
I believe reasoning and insight into the religion can guide us to levels of intellect we are yet to appreciate.
But we can't all do this individually. We have to come together and counsel one another with this, till we refer things back truly to God and his Messenger.
We are commanded to obey Ahlulbayt so we refer things back to Quran and Sunnah, not so we are ignorant of them and rely on a few people to think for us nor are we to rely on conjecture and hope a guessing system brings us to the truth as close as possible.
Ahlulbayt have said their words are light, and thing about light, is that it manifests truth and illuminates and hence can be verified.