RE: How to handle the guys with flawed plans?
Sherv,
My experience was similar, I think.
Because I spent my first year's flyng, all alone, I made every conceivable mistake ... well, not quite every mistake. I'm still able to surprise myself, occasionally. When I'd made a mistake, I had no-one to point out to me, the error of my ways, so I had to stick my nose into books. This was a very introspective and self-critical process. Totally absorbing.
It's my belief that this provided a good grounding. Good instruction would have been quicker, cheaper and just as effective; but good instruction is as rare as hen's teeth, in the modelling world. It's pretty rare in the full-sized world, too.