[jcrabtr]

"[T]he stuff I was making was really weird, because I didn't have real-world, existing examples to work from. I mean, they were around, but I guess I wasn't interested enough. It just seemed beyond what a kid could buy with his pocket money."

His good intuition and willingness to disregard tradition seem to be the key to his success. Studying examples of the "right" way to build something might be a useful learning exercise, but it can also be mentally constraining.