Agreed on all counts. I think chess would be a better analogy. I had various chess teachers when I was a kid, some of whom I ended up surpassing in skill. They were wonderful teachers but once I could beat them, there wasn't a whole lot more they could teach me and I had to find stronger players to learn from. Some of these strong players were great teachers, some weren't.For once I thought I will shut up but man... are you comparing education (important set of skills/knowledge necessary to live decent life) to free time activity such as gaming? Come on.
Let them set prices as high as they can I couldnot care less. After all I am all for freedom of choice but people here often forget how many kids are out there wasting their money on gaming because they know no better.
Also, comparing Age to football coaches is wrong imho. Football is all about teamwork, your coach does not teach you individual skills, you are already have skills when you join top team. Coaching is all about strategy. Since this aoe coaching applies to individuals only, they do not teach strategy, they teach individual skills. In order to do that you certainly need to be top player not only to teach valuable lessons but also NOT TO teach wrong way of playing.
Maybe Django and Jupe are great teachers, but their skill level is not irrelevant and it's definitely ethically dodgy if they're overrepresenting that skill level.
There is also just a lack of commonly accepted standards around what makes for good pedagogy in Age of Empires (unsurprising, unlike chess this is a small and relatively young game). Think for instance about how many people in this community get guidance from Spirit of the Law and how they all basically need to unlearn everything he says in order to progress as players.