If I understand correctly, your direct benefits of gaining knowledge are:
- To be more knowledgeable during da'wah.
- To be more knowledgeable in living your life as a Muslim.
While those are sufficient (that's also what I'm aiming at when studying Islam), explicitly stating your indirect benefits, e.g. gaining paradise, is also important. Why? So that we can separate which knowledge is beneficial for that indirect benefit and which one is not. Otherwise, we might walk in a path of gaining knowledge that is not rewarded by Allah.
I think we all have seen people went astray when they're studying Islam. They study Islam, but in the end, the "play" with the rulings. They took the liberty of questioning everything to the point where it corrupts their own faith (and, perhaps, the faith of others). Instead of bringing themselves (and others) to Islam, they put some kind of a distance to Islam (and put others with them). This, in my opinion, might serve all those direct benefits, but definitely defeats the purpose of gaining paradise. This is the path that we all should avoid.
In short, you should continue down the path you're taking right now, but please be sure that the end of the path is (being rewarded by) Allah.
Allah knows best.