I had some similar lightbulb moments when I started investigating the psychology of reading code. When you have some idea of how people with different needs and different experience read and understand code, you start to think about those factors when you write code yourself.

If anyone else is interested, my write-up is here: http://www.clarityincode.com/readability/ (I'm not sure about the etiquette of linking to your own site from HN, so apologies if this is inappropriate.)