[iamapipebomb]

As with any preference, the illusion of choice is usually necessary. If you feel you have to be doing it, it's not going to be all that much fun, at least starting out.

To enjoy it, you also need to tie the effort put in to significantly rewarding output. You have emphasized the design, interface, and user. It doesn't take much to see the code as important to these things in a direct and easily manipulable way. For instance, the implementation of AJAX-y stuff on a previously static page has huge implications to the user. A few lines of jQuery can bump the feel of the page by a decade.