i like your mission statement... 'to become the best 3d modeller the world has ever seen'.

but yeah, and im not saying im a brilliant modeller, im just a curious hobbyist really, but i think for me, where ive switched from the beginners 'learning from following tutorials' stage, to doing things by myself, i think there is a big difference between following someone elses work, and finding your own sort of 'flow'. when you are trying to recreate a model by someone else, it gets frustrating and you think you cant do it, but then, they will have used slightly different methods to you, tools, techniques, workflow, they are comfortable with. when you go from scratch and feel out your own way, yeah, like i said in first post, you can surprise yourself. im probably pointing out the obvious!