>>"Playing with better, or worse musicians - you learn something from each."
BobKnight.

So agree with that. I have been lucky on a number of occasions to play with people - or just observe and sit close to people - who are considerably better players and musicians than me. And I learned loads from them. But I have also learned a lot watching, listening and playing with people who are less good.

I also agree that people's inability to play in time is weird and enormously weird to me. How can it be so hard?

One thing that Melissa wrote in the first post was "Not a big skill, but it's useful to be able to talk, think and play at the same time." It is a huge skill. I watched last night a number of people playing together at a singaround most of them completely oblivious to the person leading the song - they just played what they knew with no reference to the timing or in some cases the notes; happy in their own little world, playing without listening.

>>What do you think makes the difference between the ones who learn at whatever level they are and the ones who start out not learning and stick with it?

I mentioned this to a friend of mine some while back and he quoted Bertrand Russell - "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." It led me onto reading some more and I came across the Dunning Kruger effect which makes a lot of sense to me and is pretty much spot on with my experience of playing with people.