I think there should be a sort of a "how-to" on LM searches

I feel like it's difficult to put together a guide on this. It's so different for pretty much every search, and everyone has access to such different tools, it's hard to standardize it. There was one case where someone found a TV show on page 50 something on Google, and another where someone just played around with a URL and managed to find a very well hidden page with the video they were searching for, so things can be found in really unusual and unlikely ways. Also, I think it's pretty easy to pick up the basics on where to start searches from looking at past successful ones and even current ones (contacting creators, copyright holders, studios, etc.).
As for lurkers, there's nothing wrong with that if someone just wants to see progress of a search, and if they're not sure what to do/what's already been done, they can ask. There might be some who just lurk because they don't know where to start, but I don't think it's ALL of them.