I even remember visiting Conanvault, though the author wasn't exactly a popular figure and had some really odd ideas (like using armour gems in the white slot on ToS...). But at least it had an up-to-date tooltips database.
But tbh I think this was in part owed to server population. On Hyrkania (and I guess it must have been the same on Blackscar), you quickly ran out of people to ask, because there simply weren't enough outstanding players around. For some classes, there were none at all.
The situation is very different on more populated servers - there's usually someone competent around who's willing to provide feedback on equipment and rotation, and from there it's only an issue of occasionally looking at a parser and you'll do well enough. Heck there's plenty of videos out there of clickers and keyboard turners doing T4. And I'm pretty sure that most people who can't even be bothered to bind their key abilities don't exactly spend hours on theorycraft.