I think working with the technology gives you powerful intuitions that improve your skill and lead to better outcomes, but you don't really notice that that's what's happening. Personally speaking - and I suspect this is true of most people in general - I have very poor recollections of what it was like to be really bad/new at things that I am now very skilled at.

If you have try teaching someone something from the absolute ground up, you will quickly realize that a huge number of things you now believe are "standard assumptions" or "obvious" or "intuitive" are actually the result of a lot of learning you forgot you did.