Um bascially, making stuff is not how good you can come up with, I think its more of orginality. For example take yours; basically all I see is an orb created with bevel and with some airbrush strokes on the top, you make the neat reflection, and the ring around it, inner bevel plus a bunch of other blending options, I used it on my TinyRC wallpaper too
(see image on the bottom hehehe) and I will admit I looked at some tutorials to make that orby thing around the trueno which I believe it was called LCD orb or sumthin.
Well, as for my avatar, it stinks; ten second quick work with the selection and layer stuff.