Ok, it sounds like the reason people fear the wind is because of landings.

Forget landing like you do on calm days. Just doesn't work that well. With gusts and turbulence, you must fly the airplane to the ground, and that also means fly it down with greater airspeed. In other words, maintain a ground speed that gives you control over the gusts and lulls that occur. So carry on with more power and fly it all the way down to contact with the runway. For those of you that are new to wind, start your approaches while you still have enough fuel for several attempts. If you have a tail dragger, you will need to hold a bit of down elevator as you slow it down to prevent it taking off again. On real bad days, keep it headed into the wind and walk out to retrive the model. Low wing airplane have a better time with the wind on the ground, but any model will fly in it assuming that the forward speed is higher than the wind.

As to flying backwards, lots of fun. Have even done it in a full size Cessna 150. That day was so bad, I didn't think we could even taxi back to the hanger.