That, and I really think in hindsight the value of understanding things better and building 'from scratch' is immense. Once I built my own 'CMS' using express

That, and I really think in hindsight the value of understanding things better and building 'from scratch' is immense. Once I built my own 'CMS' using express and RethinkDB, I had to also set up on a templating system (so I chose React server-side). I ended up using a bunch of other tools or technologies as well. All of these were on my list, but I never really found a good excuse to look into them. But now I had to pick something (as opposed to settling for HAML in Rails, or any of the other 'popular' approaches, and actually figure out what the advantages and drawbacks were, as well as how to tie all these things together. Not only was it fun in a way that building Rails sites often isn't anymore, it was incredibly educational.