@flynnyman ...
just to put this to bed now because tbh its boring...
my original comment was saying that for all these black magic skills relating to training and so on that the sorry but true reflection is that to get by be it on commercial site,newbuilds & domestic...
dot & skim is king across all builds in 90% of internals in England incidentley I have done hundreds & hundreds of float & set but my point being is that its an exception not the bulk of the work.
Likewise any new works be it commercial, newbuilds or domestics externally...mono or thin coats are far more popular now both by sites and requests by domestic customers alike.
The point I was trying to make is that you may as well be good and excel at where the demand is than harp on about skillsets and materials that you get little demand thus make little money from.
For the record I cut my teeth learning all aspects on price work but I also have worked soley on domestic work for the last 5yrs...and up until the last 12mnths used to do work for a couple of small builders, conny firm & kitchen & bathroom company aswell.
So I understand entirely your point regarding the need for understanding products and skillsets to overcome daily problems encountered by domestics.
For what its worth I believe both domestics & site are both equally difficult but in different ways...
But please for one moment don't suggest that any one that works on site price work is less of spread than a domestic plasterer...a slow domestic spread wouldn't earn there petrol money on site...likewise a ruff site spread wouldn't get paid on domestic...