by giving us free will, god has weakened his own influence, and hence cannot be considered infinitely powerful.
At any moment this god can remove our free will. His power is still infinite. Letting somone else make a decision is not a reduction in power if you can always overrule that decision. Like my analogy of the man with the gun.

nope. only if free will is an overriding good, a force that clears all evil before it (an infinite good, essentially) does this make any sense. you can try to disregard the 'lesser of two eveils' analysis, but it still stands. either murder, for example, is evil, but a lesser evil than taking away our free will to murder others, or murder is no evil at all.
No, because the lesser of two evils is equivalent to benevolence! You have not addressed this point at all! Murder is evil, but a benevolent man will always minimise 'evil', and maximise 'good'. This does not change the fact that murder is evil, but neither does it change the fact that free will is good, and neither does it change the fact that benevolence means, by definition, always wishing the best for others.

So while what you say about evil is logical, it does not affect the definition of benevolance!

i admire your daring, but more capable men than you and i have tried dealing with this question before.
You are right of course, excuse my arrogance , but at the same time, I cannot see the fault with my logic. Your issues with my thought process just don't apply...