RE: How do the microphones work ?
Nice post! I remember learning about how all my music equipment worked about a decade ago when I was taking music in college. It's pretty crazy how simple it is to make a mic, yet intricate enough for a high quality mic to be up there in price. I'm sure most people take this information for granted. Pretty much applies to all musical equipment; it's simple to make but expensive to produce high quality. Knowing this stuff also helps you get better/different sounds from the same microphone depending on where you place it and on its properties. Combining that with knowledge about how a speaker works and what different sounds come from the different areas of the speaker really allow you to get a wide range of sounds from the same mic/speaker setup on a guitar.
Oh yes indeed ! The art of recording is really like learning a new instrument in terms of amount of time you have to invest in order to become a master of it . But even if you do not want to become a pro audio engineer still , as you said , it is time well spent . Knowing that stuff really steps up your game as a professional musician :)