It does somehow feel like the xpoff community on US is a lot tighter than EU, I've always known a lot of solo twink players on EU that aren't really involved in any communities other than the guild they are in. A lot more communication in battlegrounds and getting in touch through there, or seeing random twinks in the wild. Even in a few big twink guilds i am in, it's not that often we think , oh wow that's a great opponent, they are just mainly known for playing a lot or having some crazy gear. Seems like attention for individual skill has dropped a lot unless it's a healer. Every time i queued up it was more about who was ok and who was shit. You'd look out for the best geared people because they hurt the most not because they play well...
I've been playing 19 in all expansions except mop where i didn't play at all. It seems like mop had a huge influx of twinks, and got started there, they don't really know much about the earlier days.