When I first started riding a cat 3 took me under his wing and showed me the basics and let me tag along on interval sessions and I thought he was the coolest mother ****er on two wheels. The shop I bought my bike from also invited me on group rides and took care to show me how to ride in a paceline and general etiquette. That was like 12 years ago? My experience since then is that there are fewer group rides that focus on teaching skills to new riders, and that is a bummer. I ride with some buddies that are lower category from time to time and when they're doing actual workouts I'll ride along and give them pointers because I know how essential that was for keeping me in the sport long term.
I've been racing pretty consistently for most of those 12 years. It doesn't seem like people suck more at soft skills. It does seem like the lower categories have gotten faster though as access to power training has become normal, and the byproduct of that may be that things seem sketchier than they were a decade ago. I'm pretty new to the upper category stuff so I can't speak to rider quality at this level.