I'd say you're more on the right track than those who think there is fundamental knowing apart from faith (ie, fundamental knowing).To me there's something a little more at work here, but yes I'd pretty-much agree with you there.
I'll tell you, it won't matter how you approach an issue. Some people will still be offended; others will ignore you; others will confront you.
Yes, in the absence of any conversion power, in any argument -- even a civil, cordial comparison of views -- we'll simply overlap on what we agree on, then try to understand one another, and nothing will change. You might generate an openness from others to consider what you say, you're quite right there. But they can and will close up on certain issues they feel are important. They'll listen to new insights, sure. But they'll only learn from what they don't feel they know about. That's admittedly the essence of "gnosis": they're being taught something new. Otherwise there're only two ways of humanly dealing with conflict: acceptance and rejection.
There's a different thing at work in Christ. It's a revolutionary type of power, straight from God, the One Who makes something out of nothing. In earlier centuries it was called Reformation. Even earlier it's called Redemption, and New Creation. It changes us. And it doesn't stop changing us. These aren't little plastic covers bolted onto our lives for the passage into eternity. It gets ingrained into us. And it's compelling. Once we've experienced it, we crave it. We want it, more and more, even when it hurts, and I can tell you, in our maturity we chew hungrily on it even when it comes from outside influences and confrontational, oppositional, and divisive influences.
And maybe that's the point of Scripture. Neither of our sides authored Scripture: it comes from the distant past. So when we both engage Scripture to try to resolve on the truth it's delivering to us, I say we suddenly have a new Voice amid us. There aren't two people arguing over what they have in common -- there's a Third with a message about what both people should have in common.
That third view often shows itself nowhere near what the other two people brought to the table on their own. And I think in the endeavour to search for Scripture's meaning, the Spirit of God impresses on us a new element of Reformation. Really, a change for the better can only come from the Spirit; and we have to decide whether Scripture is really intended to bring that about (and thus is inspired, maybe even infallible), or if it's not.
Without the Spirit, though, we're just fighting "King of the Hill". The real King hasn't shown Himself. And the Scripture is pointer to that real King, probably the only unvarying pointer across the years that we'll ever have.
Ultimately our conclusions about Scriptural infallibility won't satisfy us in a vacuum. Because they'll be faulty. It seems to me it's through the Spirit of God that good things occur. Since most attempts neglect the Spirit of God and then try to find out how Scripture accomplishes its work, they seem bound to miss the point.
I'm not really sure how else to tackle the job, though. Yes, we have to interact knowing we are crooked people, always going wrong. But we do so with hope in God's perfection, because the Spirit can strike a straight blow with a crooked stick.