Joe from San Diego hit the nail when he mentioned "confusion" and "over thinking". Over the years, I've had a million sail trim conversations. The most difficult ones for me are where the sailor starts in the middle, so to speak, instead of letting me explain what the sail trim control they're interested in discussing actually does they go off on a tangent and sometimes I fall into the trap and try to follow them. I understand what they're going through because I was there myself and I hate to see mates go through what I went through to learn how to sail a silly sailboat. Finally, I have to say STOP and LISTEN to me and forget what you're talking/thinking because you're even confusing me. That's what happened when I started following this topic.
I don't care what a person is trying to learn, unless they go about it in a logical manner started with what all the sail trim controls are adjusting, which is draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack. They have to completely understand those 4 elements or sail trim will never make any sense. Next, they have to know which main/jib sail trim control adjusts each of those elements and what happens when you push/pull each control. What I'm talking about is pilots ground school or kindergarten for sailors - that's my teaching lot in sail trim life. Once they graduate from my stuff then they advance to college with jackdaw, Joe from San Diego, RichH, Stu, Scott and others. I can't teach at the level of those guys, nor do I want to because I love newbies -- most of them!! You can't go to sail trim college until you graduate from primary school because you won't know what they're talking about.
I've used this example many times to describe the how the traveler works. The traveler is the simplest control to understand. Picture your screen door with a pin in the corner which rides in a grove in the floor. When you open and close your screen door does the shape of the screen door change? Of course it doesn't and you could install a 50' traveler on your boat and the result would be the same - the shape of the mainsail will not change no matter how far you move the traveler. That's why it's a great control to use in a gust. When the gust hits, just drop the traveler and after the gust passes just put it back to it's original position and go merrily on your way. Introduce the mainsheet or other mainsail control in conjunction with the traveler and you get a different result.
I think I'll now have a "tinney -Aussie for beer" and try to clear my brain!!