Gotta agree with this 100%. You don't need to know if something is #aabbcc colour or set to 12% exactly. I still use tuts quite a bit, but I tend to use parts of them rather then the entire document. I'll see an effect I like, or a step I'm not quite sure about and what I read to recreate my own object.
Great example is my Gear work avatar. I've used gears in alot of things but I had to read a tut on creating gears to understand the initial process that I'll need to know.
Still it's a good job and lets see you improve on that a bit more. ;)