I agree that it's hard to go wrong, but I enjoy playing with my heap.
The most useful thing I've learned (besides DON'T let a pine tree root system steal your pile from you) is that the sooner you grab the compost, the better.
The idea of "aging" compost that's mostly finished no longer appeals to me. That just loses soluble nutrients and lets compost-heap-microbes eat more organic matter that could have been fed to soil microbes.