NXT 1.0 briefly got me out of my dark ages in 2007. Then I went dark again. Eventually 42009, GBC videos, and my son's growing interest in Lego all pulled me out of the dark for what is probably going to be a long time in the light :-).
The Technic/NXT line is starting to get a bit old to me though... I'm probably going to start branching out a bit. The "Beautiful Lego" books really opened my eyes to the artistic possibilities of Lego outside the Technic line. I wish the Architecture series wasn't so stagnant and overpriced.
Cheers,
-Mark Rebuck