Learn the basics first!

Reading swim myths debunked threads got me thinking abut this again, but I don't want to derail them with this.... One thing that always puzzles me is when average swimmers look at the cream of the crop swimmers, like Phelps, and the rest of his caliber to see how to maximize out own performance. Most of us real mortals tend to have much more basic and serious flaws in our techniques, that if corrected even half ways would make a HUGE difference in performance. Most of the cream of the crop at the top has gone through the basics, and fine tuning, and then fine tuned things even more to take advantage of their own physical advantage or disadvantage minutia. I'm not talking about it sometimes being fun to analyze what makes the greats great, and the physics of it all. Thinking about what may be next and trying to learn and investigate more is always a good thing - well, let me qualify this, when put in it's proper perspective. I'm talking about when actually coaching and clinics... most of what we end up dealing with is people who worry about their hand entry, should it be thumb or pinky first, and similar minutia... while their whole arm movement, for example is so inefficient, they get very little propulsion out of it. What I don't see in swimming as much as I would like to (or as much as in other sports I participated in) is emphasis on, learn the basics first. Then you can start fine tuning things.