When I started almost 20 years ago it was just a matter of buying a whistle and say you'll give it a go.
In my first game it was my old club Vickers...
I take your point about players needing to make their own decisions but it is tricky knowing when the maul crosses the LoT from 10 metres back and it...
Wales in recent years (Gatland era) went through a phase of adding backs to their maul if they had a 5m attacking lineout. The backs invariably came...
I think the key thing here is, there is no official signal for when the line out is over.
Convention to me was always arm straight up and comes down...
Having now watched the whole match I wouldn't mind betting that something was said/discussed at half time because there was much more attention paid...