Good for you, and I seriously mean that. One of my friends, who actually finished a BA and dropped out of a MA degree (not to say your educational credentials matter, but it will become relevant later in my post) had some really neat ideas on ancient Semitic linguistics, related to a bunch of wall inscriptions he found out about while living in Egypt. He later tried to contact the foremost authority, a Western academic who is one of the few who had any interest or academic weight (with a topic this esoteric, I imagine the former is more important) and present his ideas. Needless to say, that ancient Semitic linguist was not amused. He not only ripped into my friend, but at the suggestion my friend visit the site that inspired him to do said research, the professor mentioned he had an exclusive memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian governmental body in charge of the antiquities, and threatened him if he ever visited without the permission the professor had no intention of providing, he would be arrested. Keep in mind he was not even in the locale, but in the United States. I saw subsequent emails where he refused to even consider my friends theories, and was increasingly dismissive.
So my friend, not easily discouraged, went on to contacting the less than a dozen experts in this field, few with any knowledge on this period. He presented paper drafts to several; many ignored, and those who responded rudely dismissed him without getting into the content.
Maybe it is just because the field is narrow, but I suspect certain academic disciplines believe in some kind of job security, and pouncing on amateurs and pushing them out the door, regardless of their perceived contribution to the field, is paramount. I am glad you have had the opposite experience.
I too a masters degree dropout from an accelerated program, and left with out the masters in the bachelors masters combo. Why? Because despite the money I never had experiences like you in school. All the teachers in my program, despite thinking my knowledge level was quite strong and generally liked me, disliked meeting with me outside of class or pushing me to read or study things we could discuss. I got disheartened, and was disgusted at how many teachers do not belong in academia, and just like the echo chamber of their own ideas. I know I could have made a better effort, but the lack of effort on their end to sit and talk with anyone who had a modicum of interest was shocking to me. To this day, I wish private universities would take the out of class contact more seriously in evaluating professors, because your comment proves no one is too busy to talk on academic subject they are passionate about. My friend's anecdote just shows some cliques are just that, and letting anyone is calculated risk to the group regardless of contribution; some people will never take that risk.
I just wish assholes like that would go somewhere else other than a university setting.
tl;dr I had the opposite experience with academics, and one of my friends tried hard in a very small domain and had even worse results; YMMV and some academics have no interest in spreading knowledge at all. Fuck them.