I want to play Devil's advocate a moment, not just because it is fun but because I have never seen the point of LHO and since the nerf of their spells I don't see the benefit of LHO's.
When I started it was forwned upon to feed people information, for example explaining how to get into Loreroot publically was quite verboten. You learned as you played, some things you never learned if you didn't play enough. Personally, the very few occasions somehow has asked me for help I try to tell them to search the announcements and the forums as 99% of the time the answer is there, there also tends to be an explanation of why something is the way it is, which is more important than knowing the thing itself, I tend to find. Seeing as they don't ask for help a second time I can only assume my superior way of teaching has set them off on the right path, so much so they never feel the need to ask a question again!
A ticketing system would be far superior to the glowing button, although I will miss being able to spam an LHO when I get bored. Why not have the button link to a general thread on the forum? Let anyone help when someone is actively looking. Why do we need players with a * and a few spells? You will probably get a faster response that way. Most importantly, it will be public so if the answer is incorrect people can chime in. Why restrict it to certain people, when you can have it in a public place?
If someone isn't going to stick around because there is nobody around to feed them answers, that is an excellent filter in my opinion.