To play off of Jeff's answer, maybe there's some middle ground, focused learning-by-accident. What I mean by that is while the SO way has been a solid line directed at a goal (vector):
and the all out forums are more like big circles around the goal:
maybe what is optimum is a small slice of pie, a bounded area that keeps close to the straight line, but gives a little flexibility.
So you're not just learning anything by accident, you're learning stuff directly related to your field. I've found many ideas in my life by accident that I was able to use in my coding and other computer work because it's the idea that counts. Once you get that idea, your specific implementation might be just what you needed to improve how you code. Heck, I have gotten a lot of good stuff like that off of Jeff and Joel's blogs.
Currently, SO actually does use a slice of pie, because there is no perfect way to stay on the line, I just think that it can handle a slightly larger slice.
I don't plan on ever sorting my socks that way, but the next time I have a large sorting task, I'm planning on rereading the answers to see if I can do better than I've done before.