I identify with this! but things are still early for me. Can't resist climbing on all these steep learning curves, but often that means finishing later than those who approach the same problem using familiar tools. I'm hoping that with time having taken on all these challenges will translate into better output - sounds like in your case it has.

I had a great piano teacher who was genius with harmony. He approached jazz standards in this split way, simultaneously obsessive about grasping higher abstractions and about digging into the piano on a low level. (I guess grokking in retrospect.) One thing I left with was the idea that speed and excellence in something come from fluency with it, but getting fluent can take a long time, and you'll be slow and unfinished before you're close.