Its good to know that there are people that actually know what they are talking about here on t11.The problem is that unlike you most of the people here don't have mentors.They learn the tricks from the "DVD"S and and that's about it.
My mentor was a guy who started magic two years after me, at the age of 16, and is now 18. He is amazing and has a respect for the art of magic that I think no one else here has. He has about fifty years of magic history stored in his head, and he strives for a perfection I haven't seen in others. My mentor gave up doing magic for med school, and I think we have lost a great mind in magic. I saw him as a reincarnation to the old art. You wouldn't believe how many times he'd talk to me saying "I created a new sleight based on (blah blah blah's means to achieve blah blah a la blah blah." The next day after searching endless manusripts and doing his "homework," he'd come to me saying "this person created this sleight in this year to achieve this result in this effect" or something along those lines. It just shows that he had a grasp of magic that I never could imagine having. He has lots of stuff he's kept secret, and I can tell you it's nothing modern like DM or Brian Tudor. In fact, it's completely old school. The important thing here is that I have ten times the respect for him than I do for anyone else.