The fact that MMORPGs are full of people who think like this is one of the worst things about the current crop of MMORPGs. I think there's a long tail opportunity for MMORPGs where "Work smarter" is the prevailing ethos.
I remember the early, early days of EverQuest. I had little directional notes and constantly referenced the map that came with the game. Then EQAtlast came out with beautiful hand-drawn maps and key NPCs. Then things like Illia's Bestiary, &c, continued to lower the bar of entry. MMOs have been democratized, and it makes "work smarter" much harder.
The closest you can probably get to "work smarter" is "work skilled". And there are gamers who pursue that route. For instance, Skunkworks was a guild that was 81st in the US to kill Heroic Lich King. This was on an 8 hour a week raid schedule (compared to 'hardcore' guilds that raided 2-3 times that long, in a week). So there's definitely skill there. But those are the exception rather than the norm.
You're caught up in how things work in most MMOs. I was thinking of things like, being able to script most anything. (Then being able to license the scripts to other users. This would be a "futuristic" space game.)