Pronounciation would be pretty useful if you had wanted to speak it! Classical Latin, as taught, is based on what are considered the "best" exponents of the written language ( Cicero for prose in particular), so it bears the same kind of relationship to (putative) spoken Latin of the same period as polished literary prose of the present day does to the current demotic. Having said that, the main reason why medieval Latin is easier to understand is probably because the word-order and vocabulary more closely resemble the usage in modern European languages. I found Erasmus far easier to translate than Cicero, for example; and a damn sight more entertaining, if it comes to that.