Please consider framing your project in your mind as a hobby.
It’s valuable to the degree that you enjoy it. Learning and other external values don’t have to apply here.
Just the fun of doing it can be enough.
I'm familiar with the author's past work on ieee.org and have a sense that he likes to write to/for both hobbyist and professional camps:
Ham radio as a whole is a great hobby to sink your random RF projects into already.. its a hobby within a hobby, no matter what path you may take ;)