I'm finding this with a lot of services - from small appliance stuff, 'brand store' clothing and home furnishing stuff to ... actual houses. My wife researches. Not necessarily huge amounts of time, but she googles stuff before we look at buying. Inevitably, she knows far more than any of the sales people we talk to. Whether it's comparisons against other models, last year's model, materials, warranties, whatever - she always knows more than the staff. Now, in some cases, yes, perhaps the staff 'know' something, and can't 'say' it in public - I get that - I've been there. But this happens far too often for it to be just that.
Even in large commission stuff - housing - we've been looking at housing for a while - she tends to know more - or at least, of course, from my view - stuff that's somewhat more useful. Or, even more basically, stuff that's not on the damn sales sheet.
We looked at a house with a different type of siding than some of the surrounding houses. Sales guy - who's been working in that neighborhood for a while - he's the sales guy engaged by the home builder - didn't know what the difference was, why it was chosen, or what the pros/cons were. 3 minutes on google, and 1 minute in the house, we learn this siding has a big impact on sound/noise reduction. This would be a huge selling point for some people, took about 3 minutes to look up, but... the guy who makes a living at selling didn't know some of these basics (and didn't offer to inquire or find out, either).