If you take the long view, it's possible that photography as a technical hobby is merely a stepping stone to gaining a better understanding of the art form, wit

If you take the long view, it's possible that photography as a technical hobby is merely a stepping stone to gaining a better understanding of the art form, with the eventual goal of improving the hobby both technically and artistically. I agree that photography as a technical hobby is an "incomplete" picture, but having an absolute rock-solid understanding and experience of the fundamental technical foundation cannot possibly be a bad thing. Most technical hobbyists will probably remain just that -- but it's possible someone will surpass them and tie together the artist and the engineer into something that will astound the world. Or whoever they show their work to, which is possibly nobody. It's possible this has already happened, we just don't know about it yet. And maybe we never will.