So for example, you can see that someone killed a healthy group and admire their marksmanship, without having the first idea how he did it. Later he'll understand the tesuji to kill, but not the initial attack that left the group vulnerable. Then he'll understand the attack, but not how the killer kept the game so tight that his opponent had no time to defend... and so on.
Why say that if you don't know exactly how some did something, you can only "appreciate" it? Sometimes the most intense admiration lies closest to the surface (you don't always want to know how the sausage is made), sometimes it lies hidden below the surface. Go has some of each. I used to think the crane's nest was really cool.
By the way, "it takes level to see level" is an awfully ugly phrase. Possibly because of the connection to the juvenile taunt, "It takes one to know one"? Combined with the use of a position in a hierarchy as a metonym for a human being? If it needs to be metonymy, I vote for something that can double as the verb as well, like "You need reading to read reading".