Knowledge has nothing to do with mastery. I read a crap-load of photographic information very early on and would have known without ever taking a single photo the basic difference between the effects of differing filters on various types of films... mostly panchromatic. Hell, Adams could have achieved a similar affect at Half Dome by simply switching to ortho film with no filter... or minimal filtering.
Even back when I shot quite a bit I was never better than "pretty good". Well, better than anyone I'd personaly met but that wasn't saying much at the time. I would love to be called a "master" but that opportunity was lost a very long time ago. Now I just want to have a little fun and take some not-so-crappy photos. ;)