All of that is to say that all of my web development work has been primarily in a particular abstraction, with little or no "Close to the Metal" type work I finally find myself in a place where I have enough time and determination to work with technologies (like MVC) that allow me to reach outside of those pre-made abstractions. The challenge is, that with all the time spent there, I don't know what I don't know. So, to the true question.