I agree that they try to be helpful, but they're hobbled by not knowing exactly what they're dealing with. Presumbably when you take calls at DISH is that you can know the customer's setup with relative confidence. Here, you have to wring it out of them and even then, they don't always give complete and accurate information.
I think there is a need for an intermediate level of support where you can get nitty gritty technical questions answered quickly and accurately. I'm not sure how you squeeze it into the system but it would help many who need details rather than handholding.
I think as an experiment in handholding, a forum probably isn't the right tool because you have to pepper the customer with questions to figure out what you're dealing with.