As a relatively new player I don't see the problem tbh. If your active and talk to people, start in a small alliance or just ingal, learning the game like everybody has to do anyway, you get the hang of it..
If you're active on irc, or even in pm to people, you get to know them, and you form relationships that can prove valuable for when time comes and you feel you're ready to try moving on from a small/relaxed ally into something more hard core
It's not that hard to make some effort, and tbh, I usually send out pm's to people ingal that seems to struggle, and give them some help if they want it. Quite often I don't get a reply, guessing they're not really interested in playing or something.
Communication is key here, and it only took me half a round to get to know people, but I'm still learning something new every now and again since I started playing 6 rounds ago, and people are always nice and help when asked.
So imo it's just bullshit that you can't learn to play in a top alliance, ofc you can. It all comes down to how much effort one can be arsed to put into it.