Thanks for the advice graphical_force,
Fortunately I don't have to make a living out of web developing at the moment, but that's what i'm aiming for in the future (not too distant I hope).
I'm currently using GoLive CS for laying out my test pages and don't have any 'real' projects - so I can pretty much take my time - when I have time.
The thing I don't like about GoLive is not knowing what's going on underneath the hood, and what all the source code is doing.
So Yep, I'm learning (x)html, also a bit of php because I want to know about forms processing for a personal project and I have a book on CSS which I have basically read through but haven't gone any further.
CSS appears similar in concept to the way text styles work in InDesign and other page layout programs where you can assign various attributes and styles to your heads, sub heads and body text etc. and change them and your entire layout changes. With CSS it looks you can change all sorts of things including object colour and position - looks pretty daunting at the moment!
I downloaded the Flash trial and did a few tutorials which I understood reasonably well - similar to concepts in PhotoShop and Illy.
Maybe I'm looking for shortcuts when I know I really should be getting stuck in to the 'nuts and bolts' and worry about the 'fairy dust' later.
To be honest, I haven't actually coded a single page of html by hand yet! I need to get off my ass and do it instead of looking for excuses not to by browsing through these forums 
[you said]
Everything we do now will be ancient history in 10 years.
I'd be interested to know where you think it's headed.