My secret agenda is to provide a resource that points to the highest artistic and technical aspirations of the traditional photographic medium. Most people will want to compromise these aspirations for the sake of utility. If you are studying the Zone System to make your commercial photographic work more aesthetically appealing, you might decide to standardize on certain print values for certain subject areas. It is easy to find shortcuts and compromises. It is more difficult to find any resource that encourages you not to compromise.
Predetermined effects are usually crutches.
Like Infrared film. Generally speaking, people use it as a crutch to avoid the burden of original thought. Now the apology. If you are a person who regularly uses Infrared, silhouettes or black backgrounds and are enjoying those techniques and are satisfied with the creative juice they give you, that's cool with me. Being satisfied with the creative juice you get back is what I am trying to be about.