help from Apple helpdesk, the lack of it.

No, the Apple reps, as you call them, will only weigh in on a question after it has gone answered for at least 24hours. This site is comprised of predominately other Apple product users volunteering to help.

To extend on stedman1's answer, the Community Specialist are forwarded posts from certain but not all forums that have gone unanswered for at least 24 hours and that can be answered primarily by a referral to a Knowledge Base article. They've expanded the kind of questions they can answer somewhat since the program launched but they are still doing exactly what they are supposed to do.