I understand that prophecy is used by God as a means to encourage and build up one another? However, I can't help but think that some prophecy is not a direct vision from God but rather one's own intuition acting.
Yes, I believe this is highly possible, if not probable. Most "religious" people will both scoff and demonize those who display psychic abilities, for example. And yet, talk to a mother and ask about the bond between them and their children. I used to think my mother could see through walls...lol. This is actually only one example of what we often call "Mother's intuition". It is real and numerous mothers will not argue that there is some type of connection to their children that is intuitive and sometimes even telepathic.
I don't want to bash religious books, teachings or doctrine but you make a good point. When you read through the barbaric rules laid down by "Yahweh" in the Bible, Torah and Talmud, and the responses to specific situations (ie: forcing a woman to marry a man who has just raped her, if she was a virgin at the time...stoning disobedient children, etc) it is impossible for me to believe that these rules were given by the God of Love, as evidenced by the teachings of Christ. My belief is that Moses simply wrote the rules out himself and claimed they were divinely inspired and came directly from Yahweh.
When it comes to prophecy, there are some interesting things happening. We are in the midst of an apparent major evolutionary leap of our species into what the Hopi refer to as "homo luminis" or "homo spiritus". Many have begun to seriously examine the spiritual component in their lives, thanks in part to what we read about the "indiscretions" of the clergy in general and a concern that their teachings may not be the real truth. So what is happening is that many have turned from traditional religion and are seeking other ways to express their spiritual aspect as well as grow and develop spiritually. As a result, many are reporting that they are being contacted, in some fashion, by non-physical beings and given advance knowledge of future events. Many of these beings, including the likes of AA Michael, Raphael, Raziel and Metatron as well as ascended masters like Kwan Yin, Serapis Bey and St, Germaine, are said to be communicating information to selected individuals on this plane of reality. They also claim that they occasionally deposit "thought seeds" into receptive minds, often during the sleep period.
The problem is that it isn't just "beings of light" who were doing this but also those who we commonly associate with Satan, Lucifer or "the devil". So your question is a bit complicated because there are several factors to consider but I believe that you may well be right... some of what is touted as "prophecy" may well be nothing more intuition or common sense.