I felt the same way, and I'm kind of in a similar position. I wrote mostly "real" instrument pieces for a while, and I was relatively happy with the arrangements but not the production. Step 2 for me is working with electronic instruments--I have less of an idea of how to use them "correctly," but I feel that would be easier to figure out than learning how to make free samples sound good (and I'm not willing to make the expensive investments for more). Step 3, which would come after I can get posted to OCR, would be to go back to "real" instruments--only my best samples at first, in conjunction with synths--and make something good with those.