There can be disadvantages to being a mostly self-taught guitarist. One is that you may learn improper techniques and this is why any number of guitarists chant the mantra "Find a teacher! Find a teacher! Find a teacher!" Another reason is that some things you will not figure out on your own no matter how much experimentation you do. Someone has to tell you stuff.
In my case I learned about string winding after probably seven years of guitar-playing, from a bassist. :) That's a beautiful irony there for you if you traffic in musician jokes and stereotypes (i.e. "Why did the bassist get angry at the timpanist?" "Because he turned a tuning peg and wouldn't tell which one"). He was able to explain the usefulness of string-winding. It means that you have enough give in the loops of string to keep the string anchored and, what's more, it means that when you want to use alternate tunings there is give and take to tune upward or downward.
I had been simply tuning my strings straight up to concert pitch without winding the string anywhere, clipping the excess length, and going my merry way. This meant that my guitar was in tune but that if I tuned DOWN to drop D tuning the string didn't have any winding to stay in play and the sucker blew off the instrument and dangled from the bridge. These are the sorts of reasons why it can be useful to have a teacher.
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