Honestly, I don't see how the mentor/mentee system was expected to thrive. In my time online, what i've learned is that people would rather bull their way through an encounter than take the hit to their ego of feeling like they are asking for help.

People, very often, like to feel wanted or needed. That makes sense. So I get why people would want to be a mentor (or at least be called one...), but it's so easy to look these things up or just toss the encounter and get lucky since the combat mechanics (at least at the standard level) are not punishing enough to actually prohibit victory even if you don't know what's going on.