>Plus my guy would smoke me up for free a good amount of the time and we'd just chill and chat for a bit.
that was my experience with earlier weed delivery groups in SoCal as well, when recommendations were required.
A guy with a suitcase of samples would show up to your door, and offer you a sampling of everything he sold. That person would even help you light-up or vaporize the goods if you have a physical disability that prevented you from doing so yourself , or perhaps teach you how to in-case you're unfamiliar with equipment or technique.
They would sit there and smoke with you or bullshit for a few minutes about strains/strain-quality/benefits/whatever, make a sale with whatever was chosen during the sampling, and then head out the door.
Since those days medical prices have gone down significantly, but the process is now more sterile and 'mass-friendly'. Gone are the days of interactive sampling or someone teaching you how to use a bong or vaporizer -- it's now mostly all 'delivery-fied' : "give me my cash, here's your delivery that I know absolutely nothing about, and i'm gone ASAP."
It's a shame in some ways -- the earlier methods were a lot more compassionate towards actual medical patients and actual medical needs for this product -- the status in SoCal now feels more on-par with UberEats-profit-maximization than it does compassionate-care; a shame since 'weed products' have gotten way more complex with the addition of a million different tincture/extract/compound/etc and the various ways to imbibe them.