This "insight" is more of a general blah-blah than a nice specific position, but I'm going to post it anyway, because this single thought appears to have turned my game around, and instilled it with confidence and bite.
The thought, which came from Robert Jasiek's book on Joseki strategy is simply this:
In his book Joseki Strategy, Robert Jasiek wrote:
...big moves are not as big as their visual appearance tempts one to believe because it requires several moves to turn a sphere of influence entirely into territory. Contrarily, an urgent move realises its aims much faster. Therefore the territorial value on average per played stone tends to be greater for urgent moves than for big moves.
This, along with Robert's perhaps long-winded but nonetheless practical definitions of his concepts "stability" and "investment," have given me a handle that seems to be attached to a pointed stick. I think it's left a number of my opponents wondering what had hit them. (I know, because I've felt it often enough myself).
I must admit, I find this change a bit suspect, but apparently I'm correcting a fundamental error: overestimating the value of big points. So now, instead of spending my middle-game struggling to prevent my opponents from decimating my thin positions, I've been picking fights myself that I'm more likely to win. I'm starting to think that my perception of myself as a lousy fighter may have arisen from the fact that I had been fighting the wrong fights.
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daal
for 
. \n What is his next move?
captured at the clouded point. \n B is shut in, White has captured \n the marked stone in a ladder.
.
, he will be forced to connect at the marked stone after 
he will either capture one stone at 'a' or capture three in a ladder at 'b' - and that is the truth.