It also helps that such "super-users" are people who are actually interested in helping, rather than potentially a tech support person who can't wait to get hom

It also helps that such "super-users" are people who are actually interested in helping, rather than potentially a tech support person who can't wait to get home and see his family after a crappy day at work. You're more likely to get good information and useful help from someone who is only helping you because they want to. I find this sort of phenomenon also applies to support for open source projects. Many companies I've worked with are very satisfied with the kind of support they got merely by dropping by on IRC--they could get information, assistance, explanations of code, and even patches in mere minutes or hours from people who actually want to help. In a sense, open source is the merger of the two concepts: the "developer" and the "volunteer" are often the same person, meaning that you're talking to someone who both wants to help and knows the application backwards and forwards.