I had some bad experiences too in the beginning days which lead to my account getting banned.
Welp! You're walking on thin ice there! Was the account temp banned or perma-banned? If it's later, then your this account will be questioned.
HAHA. Same reaction from me. At first I was reading through the whole post then I was like "wait, hol up" and re-read that part.
Anyway OP, I share the same feelings. Even if you remove the "making money" aspect from bitcointalk, even if the bitcoin experiment totally fails, I'd still end up in the positives due to the knowledge I've gained in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency space. From the basic economics alone and the knowledge on investing, outweighs all the monetary value I've earned. The money is just the icing on the cake.