I've been sittin here thinkin of how to reply to this for half hour, i think ur buddies should get their heads out of the dark spot they been hiding in and come up for air, just because they learned the hard way doesn't mean the learned the rite way.
The internet is an information highway, it can give u all the info u need but it can't take the place of practice, practice, practice,and as for the quality of pickers, i think it is comin up because of the internet and sites like this one, there are hundreds of people here that give help to those of us that need it, and they teach us to do it the rite way instead of the wrong way, they had recorders to record off the
radio, some only had a record to ware out tryin to learn, so they had their tools and we have ours,not much diff as far as i can see
Chuck