Good method/approach in improving advanced Drupal development skills

This might be a bad place to post this, but here it goes.

I'm looking for a good approach in bettering my knowledge/skills to Drupal. I have been using it since D5 and I still feel like I am so 'unskilled' in doing advanced development. I still struggle with how to create a custom module or hook alter methods properly (with 1 try and not 10) through the template.php file. I have seen others create some insane modules or scripts and I just boggles me on how they come up with it.

It's always been trial-and-error for me, and sometimes I get it to work but never can get an answer on 'Why that worked'.

I have been a php developer for over 10+ years, touched a bit of C#, Ruby, and Java but nothing hugely professional. I have always been driven to continue pursuing Drupal development. Just so incredibly overwhelming still at times. I have high hopes to make the next DrupalCon in Austin, Texas.