I think you're on to something with the process of becoming better at development. Building the hard/arcane/boring things and understanding them leads to a much

I think you're on to something with the process of becoming better at development. Building the hard/arcane/boring things and understanding them leads to a much larger mental tool set. The solution for problem A could apply to shiny new thing B in a novel way, but you'd never know because A was boring and you have never done it. That being said, there's practicing your craft and getting shit done. I'm going to be VERY unhappy with a developer that is writing their own take on an MVC framework from scratch for a production project. Unless of course the situation needs it.