I think you are 100% right. Optimal play at every stake is about exploiting opponents to the maximum extent. GTO is far off from reality unless you're grinding against high-stakes pros. I only teach exploitative play up to NL1k. Of course, you still need a good baseline game plan, but afterward, you should try to adapt to each opponent using HUD and showdowns!
I do give coaching, but only to committed players in the form of coaching for profit—you can check it out here:
gopokerpro.com.
The problem I see a lot of players struggling with is that they don't know what the right play is. They look around, hear about GTO, and try to copy it (often very poorly), not realizing that the reason they don't make money isn't that they aren't copying GTO well enough, but because they aren't fully exploiting every opponent's mistake. Rake is huge, and just trying to mimic GTO isn't +EV enough; you need those exploits for a high WR.
