WoW: Gold worth $25?

I wonder if guides like this one are worth the time I'd lose from my life learning this info by trial and error or living on the WoW forms and websites.

I often get the feeling that I'm not a "serious enough" WoW player. Heck, my level 57 druid was down to less than 8 silver this week at one point. At times I think guides like the one above, assuming (and this could be a huge mistake) they're well-written, are much like buying characters off of eBay or using a leveling service. If you come across this information in a guide, you're not really part of the community.

Still, I'm not sure I want to spend the amount of my life that it'd take to figure out the good stuff on my own. Seriously, look at all the armor sets that I'm supposed to know about. I don't even know where half the instances are for the "tier 0" druid armor set, much less have I joined a guild that goes there on a regular basis.

Oh well. It's hard to be a full community member when you're only half-committed.