Quote - But taken too far, it can be a waste of valuable time -- time which should not be spent majoring on minors.

true, but since for almost everyone here, this is just play, what does it matter?  as long as we're all having fun...

i keep tweaking stuff and trying to take my work further in lots of directions.  but even i build on existing knowledge.  i just took a render through 3 iterations instead of 10 or so.  another one i was working on recently i spent most of my time on trying different elements rather than tweaking materials and light for realism (though i did that, too).