I don't think the answer to a lack of good scholars is to come to uninformed conclusions yourself. The answer is actually train to become a scholar. And yes, that is a lifetime's dedication and not something that everyone can do. May God reward the Ulema over and over... Closeting oneself away from the dunya in your opinion makes people conservative and trapped in their books and established patterns of thinking - for me that is a protection from the fitna's of the dunya. A true religion does not need to be synchronised with the 21st century. It is the 21st century that needs to be synchronised with a true religion.