Yes, Mark.......I understand, and agree....
Get the information, be informed.....but allow yourself to be the judge of how information is processed, and used. I think you understand this, and I think you'll also agree that a solid set of skills are only relevant to the results you are capable of producing with them. There are, IMHO, many new turners who have a solid set of rules given to them that they feel is the pathway to acquired skills......but, are responding to advice that doesn't work for them. Not saying these rules don't work for anyone, but certainly they don't work for everyone equally.
In another thread recently, we saw some Japanese turners who were bracing their tool a long distance over the tool rest to a clockwise spinning bowl and cutting on the interior of the opposite side of the bowl. If someone from our group started speaking of such a thing, that person would be considered a bit loony.......but there you see it happening with your own eyes, and it's an example of results acquired by someone thinking entirely outside of the mainstream thought we are continually exposed to here. That is only an example, but the point is that good results can, and do happen for those who are creative, and live outside the current mainstream thought.
ooc