Notes from a new user

I started using Drupal about 90 days ago and wanted to offer my experiences to the redesign group.

To create context:
I have 15 years experience in application development leading large teams, and 10 years experience in web design and development from enterprise class to small business.

I have used all the prominent CMS systems, and I am converting a large website to a multi-site Drupal model. I came to Drupal through CiviCRM when i was researching solutions for fundraising, etc. Currently have about 30 modules installed, experimented with about 40.

Drupal is the most powerful framework I have used, and has almost become an obsession. That being said, the website (documentation, modules, etc.) has increased my Advil intake considerably. These are just rough notes:

I installed v6.

I don't know any of the navigation tricks insiders know to find certain things, and I am not really interested in learning them. I want to find things in a conventional way.

The documentation structure confused/still confuses me, because I want to find things relevant to 6. Often I will read something and look up at the top to realize it is tagged as 5.x. The date on the documentation is also confusing, because it is the date it was written (I think) and I tend to think it is the date last edited.

Everything about modules tends to drive me nuts. If I hadn't found drupalmodules.com I am not sure I would have pressed forward with Drupal. By reviewing the most popular, using the v6 filter etc it allowed me to get a grasp on what I probably needed. There seems to be a cultural bias towards not defining things, which makes sense. At the same time, it feels like someone dropped a giant box of Tinkertoys on the floor and said build a windmill. Doable, but a whole lot faster if I could look at the photo on the box. (possible poor analogy)

One thing I would find very helpful with modules is Potential Application. Quite a few of the descriptions have text like "could also be used to" which is fantastic. At a very high level, there are common patterns and interfaces in web applications, and using those as tags of some sort would make a huuuge difference. Actual example - flag module. I am using this as a simple workflow tool to create lists of pages that need certain things, which is amazing. Never would have found this module if I hadn't read about it in the comments on disambiguity and read the author's text.

Something else I would like to see is every CCK module for v6, ditto for Views 2 in one simple view.

I also would like a mechanism to subscribe to modules. There are many that are in development and so I do no have them installed. There is no way that I know of for me to follow their progress.

I don't understand why search works the way it does. I was having trouble with the Date module on a exception date issue, so I needed to see if that issue was documented, etc. I put Date in the search downloads box and it wasn't even on the first two pages of results. This is something I have done over and over again, I need to train myself to search differently but I really don't want to.

Two examples of documentation that I think are well done are Wordpress and Expression Engine. They both give me the option of searching just docs, docs and forum, etc. and it works quite well. Their documentation is also extremely well organized and the relationships seem intuitive. On Drupal often I click Next thinking the next page is relevant and it is on a completely different topic.

I actually have more thoughts that I have time to clearly organize and write, but I am certainly willing to be a resource in whatever way is helpful.