Walkthroughs in text today are OK because you can read until the first mention of something you haven't done to get unstuck, but nothing beats a real person giving you appropriate hints. Also, there's the Universal Hint System [1] that gives you more and more detailed hints when you're stuck, but I haven't used it in a real situation. I looked up a puzzle now that I was stuck on in Day of the Tentacle, but couldn't find it.
Shigero Miyamoto has talked about this about The Legend of Zelda. They purposely added secret stuff in that game with absolutely no hints, almost impossible to find for a single player, to encourage people to talk about the game in school and elsewhere. You could only find the secrets when discussing the game with others, which was what they intended. Imagine getting a hint at school and having to wait until you can run home and test it; that way you're thinking about the game all day!