So to summarize my interpretation of what you've been saying/thinking:
- Atonal music does not return to a particular tonic which marks the tonal center of a key. Atonality is defined in the context of the whole, not in fragments, isolation, or sections of a song because it's not enough context.
- Dissonant music is still tonal, though perhaps unconventional.
- Music theory only describes what you want to write or have written, and ideally shouldn't be something that gives you rules on how to write music.
- Ear training is a practical, common way to learn how to write music, and if you do it long enough you might do things you can't explain with theory, but it means you do 'know' theory enough to write music that can still be explained with theory by someone else that understands it better. (I'm assuming that if you know how to hum a bass line that just works, it still counts as 'knowing' theory?)
Seem to jive with you?