1. Can you provide the verse your talking about? 2. Perhaps you're looking at the case of the pagan Arabs in a wrong light. Allah tells us to take a wasilah to Him in the Quran. The Arabs apparently did this, but this is only correct when you choose a wasilah that Allah has provided and in some way attributed to Himself (do not read into this). Otherwise, using any unsanctioned wasilah would fall under shirk (one reason being that you're speaking on behalf of Allah and attributing something to Him that He has not attributed to Himself). To that end, some of the wasilah that come to mind are any of the Ahl al-Bayt (as), the Kaba, the Quran, the attributes of Allah. 3. Here is something that gets lost in translation. Tawassul is a way to be humble in front of Allah, and that is the etiquette you should always have in approaching Him. 4. Some of the forms of tawassul that are popular now are not in the hadith. This does not mean that they are haraam or shirk or whatever, and it would be wrong to call them as such without proof. Rather, what would make them shirk is if someone had the wrong intention. With that said, by ihtiyat, I don't practice some of these forms of tawassul or encourage them, but that's the most I would say. People who know the methodology of fiqh know this. Pseudo-Salafis who like to think they're Akhbaris don't.