Actually - I totally disagree
Sponsors 4 years ago would not only help you with improving your own sites for conversions (in their best interest)
BUT - would also give you loads of info of how to build traffic, how to succeed with hubs, SEs, free sites, tgp galleries etc.
And they were damn good at it as well, since the reps were all active WMs in this biz and were hired because of that knowledge.
Today - MOST everyone starts a sponsor program with very little knowledge of traffic building, SEs, or even the adult biz in general - and they wont spend the upfront capital to get people that know the biz to help their WMs because its easier to pay someone $8 an hour to give "customer support" to WMs and look like they are helping when they dont have a clue what a toplist or SERP is.
To me that is what is making my job a whole lot easier, having been through the knowledge level early on, but for these new WMs coming in over the last 3 years or so - in my OPINION - has lead to the cheating, scamming and higher chargeback levels - but then I dont expect most sponsors starting these days to even understand that reasoning.