I think the PIC people are more down to earth than the 8051 types. Maybe that is what you seeing.

LOL thats not true, the PIC is widely spread between hobbiests and 8051 is widely spread between professionals who earn a fortune from working with it.
Professionals who get paid alot of money are not willing to share their codes with others for free for at least 2 reasons:
1. the code is part of a huge development cost of a product, if it gets published for free competetors produce a lower cost product making original designers out of business.
2. They can resell their code to companies once they give it for free they stop extra income.
Hobbiests do their codes for fun and show off, they are willing to give it to anybody.
Also microchip made a wealth of information, application notes and code examples for almost anything on their web site which is free to all, so people can learn by studying their design examples or whatever code they provide.
Also development tools for pics are free, making them very attractive for hobbiests who can't afford the expensive 8051 development tools.
But to be honest the architecture of the 8051 is much better than the pic and easier to work with.
This forum is a great help for 8051 users.
I switched from motorola microcontrollers to pics in the early 90s. I was forced by my boss last year to use 8051 in one of my projects after a big fight, So I tried www.8052.com without knowing it existed, I found the forum and got help from people here to learn about 8052 and I learned it very quickly.
I thanked my boss the other day for forcing me to use 8052 ( he was very happy) because I liked the experience I gained and meeting wonderful people on this forum.
Regards
Mahmood