Sentence Correction

Two concepts I've learned about Past Perfect:

1) Past perfect should be used in sentence that has a series of actions. The past perfect is used to describe the earlier action. Past Perfect = Had + Past Participle. MGMAT: "Past perfect only when necessary, only when there's a series of event that depended on each other.")

2) Past perfect can also be used to describe an action that happened in the past but have re-occured:
I had been to LA a 3 times. Implying, I have been to LA 3 times and have been there again since at some point.

My TWo Questions on this topic:

1) How does the two facts reconcile? Which "rule" supercede?

2) If this is indeed Past perfect, doesn't the two definitions contradict? If past perfect imply an event occurred first in a series of event, doesn't the problem below suggest that the emptying of grain happened after the "becoming" action? So that make the answer choice wrong? If the second definition is used instead, then the timeline is insignificant. Any of the tense would've worked it just slightly changes the meaning. There's nothing in the meaning of the sentence that dictates a specific tense (again assuming definition 1 is ignored).



The boom in agricultural exports in the early 1970s emptied United States grain bins and many were led to thinking that overproduction was now a problem of the past.


A. many were led to thinking that overproduction was now

B. many had been led to thinking of overproduction as if it were

C. the thought this led to was that overproduction had become

D. led many to the thought of overproduction as if it were

E. led many to think that overproduction had become

is the OA E?

i say E as well.

but after re-reading your questions and the answer i think i might have confused myself. looking forward to someone else's response!

what's the OA?