Agree that assistant engineer is a dying breed. I think it is already dead. I know 1 person who has had an apprenticeship. That's it. I know a lot of people "in the biz" who could do it but can't afford doing so (my country has a very expensive law for hiring anyone).

I think your thing might be specific for just you. I had something like this from my teachers in school. I just called them and talked about things, or asked in school. Sometimes we talked over coffee. This was tho of the kindness of their hearts and very little in the long run. And more than enough for the money of a coffee and pastry. I remember being frustrated that here is a person who is great, but can't due to time restriction or many other valid reasons share his/her knowledge.

I'm self taught pretty much even if I have the "education" I am wrong in saying it amounted to anything practical. Or even up to date for that matter. My little country was still analog in the big studios when I went to school in early 00's. We had protools in school studio but that was probably one in ten I the country. So now I work for IT doing a decent living after about a decade scrambling for scraps. The big names here are the same since I started grinding.. And no apprentices. Ever.

I am thinking there will be a generation or two missing from the audio engineering world in 5-10 years. And those guys will be bedroom beat makers doing it on laptops for peanuts (a lot already is). Dunno I appreciate you are handing down info, I feel the natural way of passing down information to the next guy is a broken tradition. This is one way that works for you. But could be worth experimenting for others, a lot of people are "producing music" nowadays so there could be a market.

What would work for everybody else? Just musing.