I'd rather have Lance's coach As a coach than have Lance as a coach. That's the whole point. So what that Lance has "done it"? He did it with his coach's knowledge and direction. He may not fully understand why he did something a particular way, or how that can be adapted to different situations or athletes. Lance would know what works for him but he may not know how to apply that to you.

Bottom line is that the best person at something is not necessarily the best person to teach the same thing.

But I'm not entirely sure what you are arguing against here... Are you opposed to structured training in general, structured training coupled with performance monitoring (hear rate and/or power), structured training facilitated by a coach, or just structured training by a coach who isn't personally the most acomplished athlete?

Since you are so good that you can't imagine being coached by anyone lower than a tdf-winnng calibre rider, you must have a pretty long list of accomplishments yourself.