Doug, you've done a marvelous job by broaching such a topic on this forum. I can think of so many other such topics related to IT that I think should to be discussed and what better place than p2p to do that.

I would like to drop two quick thoughts here.

First is, I think Woody is right in whatever he said. Most people get help from people at work or from their acquaintances that are better informed than them on the given subject. People who are not lucky enough to have enough such willing experts around them turn to forums like this. How far they take it depends on the individuals.
If a person is bent on being lazy and is working really hard to get into the habit of playing it easy he certainly has many options other than and including internet. I cant help at this moment but think of that co-worker character in a Dilbert comic strip, who had this suction cup shaped mouth. He would grip himself on a co-worker's back who would then have to lug him around. You come across such characters at work all the time, don't you?
For these people, 'sense of accomplishment' is a phrase to be looked in a dictionary. But they don't look it up, you know why? Because they are too lazy!! :-)

Okay, coming back to the point, being lazy, I think, has more to do with your way of thinking than the availability of resources like internet or experts around you.

Second is that, IT industry is full of anomalies. No technology, and by that I mean - 'none literally', is perfect. With fewer topics and technologies in early days, there was a lot of time and attention each of them got for producing experts and freshers. Today starters are at a bit of a disadvantage as whatever they pick for learning more often thatn not begins to fade out by the time they get out of their academies. In such a scenario you are going to see a constant rise in this tendency of looking for help on internet. Forums such as this are better equipped to serve today because you just can't find expertise of such assorted type in one place or in your acquaintances.

I'll leave now, do continue this discussion and if possible bring more such topics to this forum.

Regards
Ankur