My sister in Portland said her library book club tried something like this last spring. The leader read about a study from some university that said open talks beat guided ones for keeping people coming back. They did it for 6 weeks and their head count went from 7 to 13. I heard on a podcast too that the whole point is people want to talk about what hit them, not answer someone else's checklist. Your Beloved night sounds like proof of that. The sheets were basically training wheels nobody asked for.

Four months is barely enough time for any agency to get real results, so firing them that fast seems rushed to me. SEO takes time, and a site stuck at 900 visits probably had deeper issues than just title tags. The new guy hitting 2,400 in three months sounds great, but I'd want to see if that holds up over a year. Sometimes a fresh switch gets a quick bump that fades once the easy fixes run out. Not saying the first agency was good, those brand awareness reports sound like filler, but judging any SEO shop on four months is a tough call.