As a total curiosity, what's the biggest from-scratch codebase you've ever made? In my experience so far, things like MVC don't always make a whole lot of sense until:
1) You've got a code base large enough that they matter;
2) You wrote it initially without using something like MVC;
3) And then it grew into a ridiculous monstrosity, which you then cleaned up by breaking it into models, views, and controllers.
At that point, if it turns out well, you start to "know it in your heart" instead of just being a nebulous concept that you read in a blog/textbook/whatever somewhere.
1) You've got a code base large enough that they matter; 2) You wrote it initially without using something like MVC; 3) And then it grew into a ridiculous monstrosity, which you then cleaned up by breaking it into models, views, and controllers.
At that point, if it turns out well, you start to "know it in your heart" instead of just being a nebulous concept that you read in a blog/textbook/whatever somewhere.