Thankfully, I didn't join the forums until a long time after I was a noob. (Disregarding my first two posts...)
I was also mostly the guy who sat there and watched... and watched... and watched until I had learned everything by waiting and watching. I do admit, though, that I was a complete idiot while doing the demo. My first build was a fail bridge just big enough to get the jeep across. I also remember thinking that there should be a way to color the bricks before you built them, as I had random colors in the advanced configuration on. Aahh, nostalgia...