If makes you feel better, you are already way beyond the clowns analysing the first ply "to the state of the art". At least playing full games, and learning some chess.
Since club players like me, and the level of opponents were playing are not known for being strong endgame players the phrase "and my opponents systematically traded all my pieces and quickly concentrated the advantage to easy victory" indicates you were likely dropping signifcant material due to bad calculation and/or missing simple tactics. Hence the typical advise to concentrate on learning tactics rather than opening theory,
when i started taking some chess lessons my coach noticed where i was running out of clock in many of my 30 minute games (which is what i mainly play) so he recommended learning so very basic ideas in the italian game--- mainly as a way to have a simple plan right from the start rather than torture myself from move 1.
it's has been approaching a year and it has only been recently where i have started to understand, and even truly apply, the "opening game" principles that get referenced, explained, spelled out, etc
it started after getting demolished in a club tourny last weekend where i (was my third otb rated game ever) and all the other players were 1500+ (most were 1800+)
both of my white games (of which i am exclusively a 1. e4 player) were against a sicilian and a caro-kann -- no precious italian game-- these guys werent messing around and after maybe 3-4 moves "which i knew" --i was quickly in unfamiliar territory-- and my opponents systematically traded all my pieces and quickly concentrated the advantage to easy victory
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during the week i saw sam shanklands st louis club video lecture about the pawns and many times these lectures can be way over my head but for some reason the simple truth pawns cant move backwards sparked something in my protoplasmic blob of chess brain
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as i was going over my scoresheet of my tournament games to make sure they made sense i began to synthesize the elements of "opening principles," vs. specific moves; lines of an opening as well as "what is going on in the opening"
in my recent live games, i have begun really focusing on the first couple of moves and how it affects the center (for example- instead of worrying about how to "counter the french or caro-kann or the sicialian) i am, much of the time, being quite aggressive and getting 1 e4 2d4 into play right away and then "playing from there"
how does opponent react; how is the position changing after each move-- these things i have heard before but they kind of make a little more sense
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now back to learning openings--- having practiced opening lines (though i didnt always understand the ideas) i felt like a kid who, learning his multiplication tables but not understanding them, finally sees a bit of the bigger picture at some point
anyways, the chess.com community, for the most part, is quite helpful and has i finally understand what they are talking about...
at least a little