I am, as usual, exceedingly late to this but it's been a busy December-January. FWIW, my thoughts:
Tyler has a better memory than I do regarding the forum history. No, we didn't overlap, though it was a near miss. IIRC, I started my pipemaking instruction site in 1997 and carried it through till around 2001-2002, just before we moved to France. There was no friction at all regarding Tyler setting his site up... In fact, I recall giving him my very best and most sinister, "Heh heh heh, good luck with that..."
I was happy to see the pipemaking hobby thing carry on and VERY happy to see it getting off of my back and onto someone else's (Nothing personal against Tyler here. Any innocent victim would do.)
Everything Tyler said in his post is 100% accurate, IMO. He didn't overstate, overthink, or overstep. That was the kind of post that needs to be graven in stone in letters 50' high and placed as a barrier at the gates of the forum that no member is allowed to pass until they can recite it word for word from memory. My own experience echoes his - A guy with a good eye and a good head for design and the patience to make a good pipe can usually make a good pipe, from whatever tools he has available. Over-obsession with tools and tool techniques is a waste of energy. If someone doesn't have "it", a $1200 lathe isn't going to make the difference. I did my initial pipe shaping by gluing sandpaper discs to the sides of a bench grinder's wheels, because it was what I had. The things that will make someone good at this are all to do with drive and determination and creativity, not with gadgets.
Amateur pipemakers can be OBNOXIOUS, sometimes overbearingly so. Tyler was correct in his comments about me being disillusioned with hobbyist pipemakers, but he was put it much more mildly than it was. I was absolutely sick of hearing from hobbyists, never wanted to hear another word from them, never wanted to see one single more email asking what speed to drill their bowl chambers at, etc etc. I was quite enthused at the start, and glad to help people, and unfortunately the usual thing happened, which was that people - sensing willingness - abused my tolerance and did the "mile for an inch" thing. IIRC, the breaking point for me was when a guy who had been emailing me multiple times a day for help... never once considering that he was wasting my working time... wrote me an irate email one morning because I had not responded to one of his drilling questions quickly enough, while I was busy trying to make a living so I could afford groceries. That was it for me.
The crucial thing to remember is that when a pro gives technical advice, it is WORKING TIME that DOES NOT PAY. Everybody that has a job knows what it's like when someone corners you at a party or something and starts asking questions related to your work - The old, "Hey, since you're a lawyer, I have this situation I'd like two hours of free advice on..." It's no fun. We're off duty. I don't mind answering simple questions because I'm glad to help out, but the problem is that when you answer a couple of questions cheerfully, too often you get a reply that's twice as long and filled with even more technical questions, and it escalates exponentially from there. If you've ever written someone three times in one day asking for pipemaking help, you've crossed the border from "Glad to" to "Damn, this guy is rude". If I'm being expected to sit and type out detailed replies and instructions for an hour, that'll be $50 and that's less than the service department charges for auto labor. Guys just don't think, or realize this, and too often get that, "Oh boy, he's answering my questions, now I can write up fifty MORE!" thing going.
This forum is a marvelous way around that, because the answers are already here. It also gives me a handy place to point people when they come to me with their question lists, because it heads them off early, lets me get back to the workshop, and makes them do their own answer hunting. Nothing is more obnoxious than the guy who won't search the forum for his answer, but instead demands that you save his searching time by spelling it out for him in perfect detail. If he doesn't have the time to try and figure it out for himself, why does he think I have the time to answer his questions?
Finally, there are the "I'm so radical the old guard can't handle me!" guys. The ones who say no, you're totally wrong to drill that with a lathe, you should be using this insane Rube Goldberg contraption they've custom built for the purpose which uses microprecision milled drive pulleys and cuts the bowl chamber with a revolving laser. Yeah. The old guard isn't being stuffy or close-minded when they shrug, roll their eyes, and say, "Whatever", they're simply expressing that they've seen this same revolutionary guy thirty times already and they know where this dialog is going if it carries on. Too many times I have wasted my good working time writing someone to explain how I do this or that, only to have amateur guy write back with, "No, that's totally wrong, you should be doing it THIS completely insane way because it gives .00000034% greater accuracy in the whatever whatever whatever."
The thing is, those stuffy old guard guys aren't trying to shut you down because your RADICAL XTREME new idea is too XTREME for them, it's because they can usually perceive at a glance whether something is actually an improvement or just a crazily extra-complicated way of doing something. Believe me, we professionals steal all the time when we see something good worth stealing. Solid ideas get traded back and forth, and if we spot a neat trick that's cool and has good economics, we're snapping it up in a second. There's no secret old boy aversion to newer and better tricks, at least on my part. To put it even more bluntly, if you feel like the old guard are being hostile to you, it's more likely that you're rude and your ideas are stupid than it is that they, en masse, have leagued against your radical brilliance.
So, there are my thoughts on the subject. I hope I wasn't too subtle.
These days, thirteen years into a professional career, I'm still happy to answer a question here and there, and help out anyone who's getting started... but I can't afford to spend two hours of working time every day writing replies to guys who want me to teach THEM, for FREE, how to compete with me for my dinner. Nuh uh. The problem is that each and every guy writing thinks they're the ONLY guy writing, and in reality they are one of ten so far that week. So if you sometimes get frustrated or feel you're being held at bay, don't immediately assume that the big bad evil pipemaker is deliberately trying to leave you in the cold or ignore your amazing skills - It's far more likely that he just doesn't have the time. Don't blame him, Go to your workshop and try making some more pipes. Learn things on your own rather than asking someone if a chamber should be drilled at 800rpm or 950 rpm. You'll retain the knowledge much better when you acquire it by screwing something up on your own than having it spoon fed to you anyway.
Here endeth the slavering diatribe [/rant]