I totally understand the limits that had to be set on the low bar for quality content. In those early days though, it seemed to me that when people asked questions about managing mobile phones for instance, because it was only newly related to being a sys admin, they'd get closed as not related.
Granted, in those early days, there weren't as many process "rules" in place to guide users to ask better questions and perhaps that's still so. However, a quick perusal of the site indicate this has gotten better and more friendly towards new people.
People like you are why Server Fault sucks. I once asked a simple question about logging in microseconds instead of milliseconds. I received a bunch of condescending responses to RTFM and that I should "hire a developer" to figure it out. Site admins closed the question as being "low effort" or something equally stupid.
I'm a developer with over 20 years experience. I read the whole manual and the product clearly only documented milliseconds. I have thousands of karma points on the main site, but because I never used Server Fault everyone treated me like a newb who's first reaction was running to Server Fault.
Server Fault is filled with arrogant admins who would rather be assholes than help.
I think the main problem is actually the reputation system. People like you get MAD because someone asks a question you can't answer in 5 minutes because then you can't get your karma points so easily. You get MAD because someone else might earn a bunch of karma from "easy" questions you don't want to bother answering.
The tenor of the questions changed in the last couple years I participated. Early questions were more of the the "I'm having this strange thing-- here's what I've tried already"-type. These were a lot of fun to research and answer. They ended up sending me down rabbit-holes that helped in my work later on. (There were also "explain xxx concept" questions, which were tremendous fun to write for but there are only so many of those that can be asked.)
I was never one to "vote to close" because something wasn't "sysadmin-related". That's likely because I've been asked by Customers to "sysadmin" virtually anything electronic. A number of my answers ended up migrated over to "Super User" as a result. The migration of questions to other sites didn't bother me, because that wasn't killing the question out-right. The "community" closing legitimate questions, however, made me sad.
I did "vote to close" on questions more of the "Can I get some free labor" vs. "I'm having a problem, here's what I tried". The former seemed a lot more common towards the end of my participation. I never saw closing these questions as lacking in compassion. Often there were plenty of existing questions the posters could've used as reference. It was clearly easier for them to ask another question rather than research.
I hold myself to am unreasonably high standard w/ respect to researching before asking anybody a question (at least, anybody who I'm not paying for it). I tried to relax that standard when it came to answering Server Fault questions, but there was still a lower limit. It was hard for me to be "compassionate" in the face of such apparent laziness and disrespect for the donated time of others, particularly when there were so many good resources right at the poster's fingertips.