You are right. You can't expect to be good at something you haven't tried. Even reading up on it won't suffice because you still have to practice doing what you are learning. Sure, it helps to know what you're doing, but you still have to practice.

I have thought about making fountain pens, but I don't have the resources to do so. I'd love to make my own, and possibly try selling my pens I've made. That's how the Parker Pen company came to be. It's founder first helped a student with their fountain pen, and the more he helped his students, the more he decided he'd make his own pens. It was a success! Of course, it wasn't all perfect. Some of his pens didn't sell well, but the pen company is still around! I think it's been a hundred years!

Hmm, I could possibly acquire more pens, dissect them, and then put them back together to see how they work.

If you make it known that you want broken pens I bet you could get a bunch of them for free or just the cost of the shipping. Then you could take them apart, see which is the broken part. It's nice to be able to learn without fear of destroying something (because if it's already nonfunctional, then nothing you do makes it worse).
I will keep my eye out for them too, although I'm not sure how well I would recognize them.

Hmm, that is a brilliant idea! I'd pay you to be my consultant because I'm not very good at coming up with logical ideas... I'd probably run the business to the ground.

A vast majority (all) fountain pens have nibs that are similar to this: nib. There will be differences, of course, but you probably get the jist of what to look out for. If you can't get to the nib, then that's fine. I haven't seen any fancy ball point pens.

Yup, I often say, "For that price, it better be made of gold!" Most of my stuff was bought second-hand or was a hand-me-down from someone I know.

I do believe the 10,000 pens have a bit of gold in them.