An aggressive repertoire

It is also very dangerous....  It's good for learning how to attack though.  I used to play it, but in king's gambit, material is of little important.  I don't recommend it in otb tournaments, but it can't hurt here :)

I can also name two other gambits, the Urusov Gambit (1.e4, e5 2.Bc4, Nf6 3.d4!?), which aims for a lead in development.  The Boden-Kieseritzky Gambit (1.e4, e5 2. Nf3, Nf6 3. Bc4, Nxe4 4. Nc3, Nxe4 5. dxe4, f6 6. Nh4!) gives white strong attacking chances, but you need to learn the fundamentals of the opening.

No!!

Chess is hard enough with equal material. Don't handicap yourself.

Non-gambit openings are also full of tactics, so that's not a reason to play gambits. Some people play them because they think it makes them seem "aggressive", "romantic", "attacking" players or some such.

There's a bit in some book by a GM - is it Yermo's Road To Chess Improvement? - where he describes a chess-playing friend who never rises above his 14xx level, and who always habitually sacrifices a pawn after the opening and then suffers and suffers to try to find some compensation... Why not try a good line that keeps equal material?

(Note - I did recommend the Evans Gambit against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 earlier. Just don't become one of those players who are always looking for a gambit regardless of the opening. Those aren't the players that improve a lot...)

Systems are fine, just remember that once you reach the point where you don't think in the opening anymore, just do the same old same old moves -- you should have switched to something else some time ago.

Scarblac, I beg to disagree : I think a healthy dose of gambit play is good for players U1600 in OTB play - it helps develop tactical abilities.

Of course, it's better to play gambits offering some compensation then just "throw pawns away"

Well, and I believe that you learn tactics by playing positions in which tactics occur often. And chess is chess - tactics occur often in pretty much every opening!

A gambit means that something is sacrificed. If the gambit is tried often, then it apparently gives some compensation -- say some development, or a better pawn structure, or whatever. It does NOT imply that the position suddenly holds more tactics, let alone that they're especially good for learning them.

Besides, players who don't see the tactics in normal opening positions also won't see them in positions where they've sacrificed a pawn for them. Leading to many rough endgames and less enjoyment of the game.

I decided to try to blay the blackmar diemer gambit - and I successfully deployed it against an opponent. The odd thing is that the person didn't put a knight out, but instead played a pawn - so now I've even better off than I would have been!

I read that gambits are good for developing playing skills because they force you to play more forcingly than you would otherwise. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm prepared to give it a fair shake so to speak.

I think for now, I'm going to choose a couple ideas - and then you guys could possibly tell me what you think of them.

As white, I'll play either 1. e4 and go for the scotch, or 1.d4 and play for the blackmar deimer gambit because from what I can tell you can get a fairly decent position even if the entire thing is declined - but I'd like to hear more input about that. I know that some lines of the scotch can result in similar play as the BDG, and could possibly transpose into some kind of marcozy bind situation.

As far as black goes I'm still not too sure about what to play against e4 and d4. Though I would like to avoid playing the sicilian, because I just do not have enough time to devote to learning that monster properly.

I've read in my openings repertoires books that the scotch gambit is good, sound really, because the best continuations transpose into either more mainline versions of the two knights or guiocco piano. Of course, my studies are too limited to understand how true this is/isn't.  

Yes, I guess Anthony's formulation is more appropriate - rather than tactics, gambit play teaches you to look for and develop initiative, as well as properly coordinating your pieces to try and strike your opponents weaknesses thanks to this initiative.

one good thing about some swash buckling gambits is the limited theory -

1. No homework! Just close your eyes and throw your pieces at your opponent's king!

2. You can be creative! Wouldn't it be awesome to have a line named after you?

I played a game recently that after a horrible blunder while I was in a position that resulted from the refutation of the biginning of a gambit line - I put point #1 to practice. Check it out here if you like http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=18810505

I think that without the early lead in development that I had I would not have been able to recover from that horrible mistake - though I know for a fact that we both could have played that game sharper and it probably would have turned out differently.

Hmmm, 11.Qe1?? - you should avoid this kind of mistakes before thinking about opening choices . But your position was quite sound at this point, and 11.Nxf6+ Qxf6 12.Nxh5 was already netting a piece.

yeah 11.c3 would've been a neat pawn fork instead.

That's the exact move I wanted to make, but for soem reason I didn't. Oh well.

Of course, from what I gatherthe consensus of most of the higher rated folks who've replied here recomend that before studying openings I should try to refine my tactical ability before studying openign theory. So here's another question: What kind of studying or practice should I do before I move to studying openings? And at what point should I start to study them?

At this point, I'm just trying to find some openigns that I would enjoy playing.

Most players who have gambits as most of their reportaire chooses to completely ignore things like endgame and strategies. They also simply assumes that their opponent is going to take the gambit pawn. 

The reason why it is important to study strategies, even if you decide on gambits the whole way, is that some gambits turn out to be rather dry when declined. And the reason for endgames, although most gambiteers rather have their games finished by brilliant attack in the middlegame, the defender may have managed to trade off the major pieces. That's when some endgame knowledge may allow a swindle from the gambiteer, who probably have less pieces.

For now, I think you should start on tactics, and mix it a little bit with endgames.

Two books I recommend are Silman's Complete Endgame Course for endgames, and perhaps the Chess: 5334 Problems for tactics. The Silman book will last you a lifetime, but you might need to upgrade the 5334 problems as you grow in strength (perhaps a program like CT Art will do for the rest of your chess playing career).

When you are ready to start in strategies, I again recommend books by Jeremy Silman - the Amatuer's Mind and How to Reassess your Chess (plus workbook if you want).

Silman's Complete Endgame Course, as I have heard, is excellent.  I have considered getting it, too.  Big book, but there's a lot of useful information.  As ogerboy said, "The Silman book will last you a lifetime."

Has anyone heard of the Verasov attack?

 That's a GREAT book 

I read the story of Spassky's life/career, which is fascinating. Spassky had 3 different trainers in his career and it was Tolush ( his second trainer ) that Spassky credits for teaching him to attack ! He said before he played a very positional/technical/boring game, even as a youngster and he liked endings and was quite good in them. In teaching Spassky to attack Tolush once instructed the young Spassky to play only gambits in a tourney they went to together. He said in this way Spassky could not afford the luxury of playing for a better endgame and would be forced to learn how to play with initiative for a material deficit. The deficit was normally a pawn. I believe it was about this time that Spassky adopted the kings gambit as white and he is famous for several of his games in this opening.

The Richter-Veresov attack is sort of like a left-handed Ruy Lopez: 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bg5.  It doesn't strike me as particularly sharp.  1.e4 openings are much sharper.

Spassky played the King's Gambit 34 times I believe, and never lost a single game.

That's because he is Spassky.