Many of my students are beginners, a few are not, and a few are better than me (in a few areas of their playing). Lore is more important than technique in many ways. I took lessons from Michael Harris (I hope you've heard of him!) for a bit. I didn't always care for his playing (very often actually), but the guy was just really on top of things. He could play a simple lick, I'd ask "where did you get that from?" and he'd name 10 other guitarists who do similiar things, or where he first heard it, etc etc.
