You entirely underestimate the power of structured learning and reinforcing exercises. While critical reasoning, curiosity, and passion are things that may be difficult to impart, a well-written book can cut hours of trial and error to something suitably reasonable. Notice that there are plenty of books but there are only a handful of "good" books.
Structured learning is great, but I think you're over estimating the power of books. Especially in a domain like reverse engineering. The moment a book is published it's out of date. What worked yesterday doesn't work tomorrow.
I never suggested people learn entirely on their own. I learned in a loosely structured way by reading thousands of forum posts, asking questions on forums, sitting in IRC channels talking to people, etc.
Perhaps, but like I said, there are books and then there are good books. Besides, state of the art might change rapidly but the fundamentals rarely do.
