Yeah, I remember tons of times when I was still new, folks would swoop in, drop recipes or SOs on me, and be gone again before I even knew what was happening. It was so cool that, once I had stuff I didn't need, I started doing it too
I remember buying up stacks of the halloween salvage one year during the event, when it was dirt cheap, just so I could hand it out to new players. I called it my "New Player Welcome Kit" - a set of halloween salvage, an escort to Croatoa to hand it in (and back again of course), and a million inf to help the early days go a little smoother. I know some people handed out more, but I didn't want to give new players an Easy Button - then they'd just get bored. My goal was to make their first few days a little less painless, while they learned the ropes. Well, that and letting them see how cool it was to have multiple outfits
Shoot, I even bought up stacks of costume piece and hand grenade recipes, and the salvage to craft them. If the newbie was really interested in learning stuff, I'd hand them a set of those too, and bring them to the RWZ base so they could craft it. Heck, the RWZ base was where I'd bring them to access a tailor too, until Freedom launched and all the trainers worked as tailors.
It always gave me a chuckle, bringing new players to an active war zone for fashion advice. "That's Paragon City for ya!" I'd tell them. "Oh and when you're done in the tailor... leave the way we came in, through the wall portal. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE." I felt like that gave them something mysterious to look forward to when they returned there at the right level.