Many web masters come across and pretty knowledgable - because they expect their clients to not be pretty knowledgable.

It is the same old addage of the auto mechanic selling you parts you don't absolutely need for the repair - they know how many average users do not know the internal parts of an engine or a suspension system and get away with it most of the time, until they try to pull it on someone who maybe knows a bit about cars, but does not work on them due to time or just a lack of desire to.

Years ago I had a guy want to partner with me for web design and programming - sure he talked the talk - acted like he knew what he was doing - but in all reality he didn't have the basic concepts of site design, development and publishing in his grasp - even though he had taken several courses on web design.

The other item to remember is many college text books exist on the subject of web design, and many of these courses are taught by teachers that normally teach business or graphic design courses - not what you would call the best line of instruction since many times the instructor only knows what the teacher prep courses and teacher guides tell them. Many times, with the fast pace of the web, the information contained in these books is 6-months to 2 years old and is often not the current mainstay in the industry based upon the amount of hacking, spam bots and such that exist and current threat trends. So he may have learned that linking email this was was more secure according to some text book written by a business degree holder teaching about e-commerce that had absolutely no clue about true web security other than the IT department and server admins make sure things are secure and you should make sure that you run SSL on your payment pages.