Fair enough. So how about this... a tut that will do something complex like what I mentioned, but done like a professional studio would do it - all scripted and driven, as J said.
My ulterior motive is, (you guessed it), I'm trying to make a complex sim with many moving parts, with each part's behavior relying on another part further up the "chain", if you will. About a week has passed since I posted the original tut suggestion, and I've since successfully made the sim with scripting and animation clips. It was all a crash course for me, but I learned a TON! Lots of research, reading the docs, trial and error, etc. My only saving grace was that I'm already a programmer so it didn't take me long to start banging out scripts to control everything.
BUT!... I'm still a Maya n00b, and as such, I'm really left wondering if I did it 'right', or if the way I did it is the most inefficient, newbie mess as ever there was. 
I'll be doing a lot more of this kind of simulation from here on, so if I could see how it's done by a real pro, I'm positive that it would dramatically improve my workflow.
Anyway, I know it's a lot to ask. Thanks for the chance to make a suggestion!
Hi danielames, check this out because I think you'll found it interesting and I just spent seven minutes finding it for you