So why aren't there competing clients?  I was under the impression that there's only one client option on both Windows and Linux because it's either really bad or really difficult. 

If I study the specification at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification do you think I'll have enough knowledge to actually implement a client with all the networking/sockets to operate nicely with the rest of the network?  I suppose, the main client is open source, so perhaps I can use that source code to clear up gaps in my understanding.

-Eto