Warning! Personal opinion to follow. This doesn't reflect the views of my employers nor of Renderosity:

I'd just like to chime in and add that while I do notice alot of folks saying, "go buy" I also notice more and more new users  (and some old ones) who simply refuse to use the Search engine or even google or (gasp!) their PROGRAM MANUAL for that matter.  I mean, much of what I learned about 3d I taught myself. Some of it came from books but alot of it came from searching for the thing I needed to know and in doing so, finding a site or person who could explain it. The  rest was just plain old trial and error. I mean, really, what's the harm in trying the Fast Scatter shader to see what it does? Where's the harm in trying the cloth room or face room to see what they do?  I run into it every day (it's my job, afterall). Half the things I help people with are either already explained in the manual, posted on the net in a tutorial or could be discovered via good ol' fashioned trial and error.  The problem these days is that many don't bother trying anymore. They just want a quick fix or a simple answer to not so simple questions (or...really really simple ones that barely register as serious questions). 

So, the blame can go both ways, I think. Just as we can shake a finger at the members quick to sell something, we should really shake a finger at those members who don't bother trying to resolve a question on their own first. I mean, that's why we have UNDO. We're artists, most of us anyway, experimentation is supposed to be in our nature.