the idiot's guide to pier

I'm feeling like I need one. I've been playing around with Pier for a couple days and well... I don't feel much further along when than when I started. Basic things like... how you change the style, theme, layout whatever you want to call it are simply a mystery to me. Is there a 'these are the must know basics' guide? I went back to sometime last year in the archives, tried googling, read stuff on the wiki and off of Lukas's site but still feel utterly lost. I see there is a PRPierFrame that everything else is inside. Do I remove the children from it, rearrange them? Write my own? That is just one basic thing I'm not grasping.. Any links to getting started basics would be greatly appreciated. in the meantime, back to trying to figure this out. Thanks. Sean