It's not 'coming up with a favor'. You're genuinely asking someone for help that they can provide. This one is more challenging with strangers, but with friends and newer relationships where you know the people better, asking them for help is a big deal. I think too many of us don't want to bother people, but it turns out people generally want to help others around them. As Simon Sinek says, don't take away your friend's ability to help you - it's selfish!

I'm not missing the point; you made several. The one I engaged I quoted for you. You can see from the sibling comments that several of us took issue with it.

For what it's worth, I agree with your last position about just being honest. If anything, a finding like this should just move the asking of small favors from a stranger towards the norm.