After playing on many servers, I have found that the first thing people tend to do in Minecraft, after starting on a new world, is they punch trees, get planks, and make a 4x5 wooden shack. They then put a crafting bench in it, and make a door. Then, they spend the first night in darkness, and go out to find food the next morning.
My point is, that people seem to always go for the crappy shack option. My preference is usually: find a spot where I want to build my home, dig a 2x2 helix stair shaft down to level 12, and dig there untill I have enough resources to build a nice house.
So why does this matter? After talking to a few Minecraft builders, I found that very few of them play in survival much at all. Builders don't seem to play much surival. Which I think is a bit weird. The few builders I have met who play survival, build really amazing things in survival, which act as centrepieces on servers. I sometimes join and am met by this conversation:
<me>Hey
<Admin> Hello!
<Other guy who has been playing for a while> Check out builder guy's castle, it's amazing!
<Builder Guy> Admin, can you TP him to me?
I am always interested to see what people make, and there is something about people who play survival, for the purpose of building... When they are ristricted by the amount of resources, when they don't have diamond, and gold blocks as an option, and when mossy bricks are a rarity, then they will build something truely acceptional.
I really like building with restrictions. Not being able to fly is one of them! Building something that looks cool in creative is one thing. But building the same thing in survival is a whole other thing! But, when you've completed it, you'll love your achivement all the more!