Zaejii, you're right.
Sov, you're also (partly) right. Many people play in the way they've always played. Indeed, conversations of the kind you mentioned seem to be getting increasingly more common, in a community with a high level of veterancy like Ascendancy, as well as in alliances like Rock.
However, there are also strategies in the game that require meticulous planning (I daresay more so than "in the old days"). Scanning and distwhoring for example require a fairly intimate knowledge of how to work population and government (the most obvious choice here is not the best). For cov opping one arguably needs even more precise knowledge. When am I immune, what is the best number of agents to use, who to hit, when to hit, how to find targets, the list goes on. I for one have indeed created excel sheets with tickplans, calculations and diagrams to help me understand and improve these strategies (not to mention
this, which, although it says it's for r22, is updated for r25), and although I doubt many others have done the same, I have noticed a certain demand for that knowledge. (I have been dubbed the unofficial PA FAQ by some.
)