Why enter into microcontroller?

Those who want to get a hands on (subjective - Its better to start [with something] small),

• How hardware behaves with the help of software or vice-versa(physical computing)
• Like to know how to deal with assembly language.
• Learn how to write/read the OS for the microcontroller
• Like to negate the preconceived fear of exploring something new.
• Testing the prequisite of *being curious* and not the programming or electronic background.  
• Like to learn in an unsupervised environment, self directed way of living.
• Like to have a look at the through-hole mounting.
• Can programming knowledge be used for hardware related work? 
• Don't want to get into capacitor, resistor or soldering stuff(its a different task relegated to background for now) but do want/like to read the schematics of the board.
• Like to see the itsy bity components on the PCB(thru-hole mounting).
• Like to really test out how the onboard sensor works - cool.
• Like to fry the chips with some utter nonsence :)
• If possible get hands dirty with the bootloader that is already flashed in induino 
• If possible flash the smallest OS in the atmega328, which could be accessed with remote shell - cool

Lets ride the possiblity with all the freedom one can have.