You don't think there were fitters BITD? If your BITD was before the internet as mine is, they were there. But harder to find since we didn't have Google.
I find that a lot of the stuff I use to do was pennywise and pound-foolish. But that's the way it is when one is young and not as wealthy with both cash and wisdom as when they get up in age.
I think I fit myself to my bikes pretty well. I've experimented with changing things up on all of them. And I've been on all sizes of bike, many way too large for me. Only now I'm toying with the idea of going to a fitter just to see what they come up with that might be better. Not because I really need better.
But I don't disagree with you that a good fitter seeing someone in person can more likely solve a persons issues better than we can here.