A Bitter Baking Battle

Survey the battlefield depicted to your right. So many men spread out amongst the tools of war. And yet, they are all the victors. What stuff they're made of will help them survive against a horde of hungry party-goers. They refuse to be tasty.

It is a well-kept secret that I am not skilled in the creation of gingerbread cookies.
So well-kept is the secret that I, myself, found out a couple nights ago.

My sister, Niki, and I set out to make a batch of cookies for a holiday party in Girdwood. Based on the limited selection of ingredients available at our mercantile store, we settled on gingerbread cookies from an internet recipe.
I won't bore you with all the details, but I will say that after the first batch, we had to make adjustments. After the second batch, we made more adjustments.
Third batch, add rum.
Fourth batch, add chopped ginger.
Fifth batch, drizzle with honey and raw sugar.
Final batch, maybe more molasses?
Did I mention we didn't have gingerbread man cookie cutters?
We used Halloween cats, pumpkins, and ghosts! Turns out modified ghosts look like gingerbread men.

And maybe eating cookies that are not a flavorful sensation enhances the experience of eating any other cookie that tastes better in the future.
An example:
I once mixed Tabasco sauce into my coffee to give it an extra kick. (yes, ONCE.)
The downside was that it tasted horrible. The upside, which I didn't realize at the time, is that now even the gas station coffee isn't so bad, because I can always think back to that one, absolutely horrible cup of coffee.
Will this hold true for cookies?
Is this the antithesis of striving for the best of the best in the culinary arts?
And does this define me as an optimist or just someone willing to settle for anything that isn't the worst of the worst?
I'm voting for optimism. :)