First I've heard of "Taco Bell Programming"[1]. I love it, this needs to become a normal part of my lexicon. Also heck yes, it completely mirrors my experience - a few dozen tools combine in fairly simple ways to make absurdly useful results. The problem is finding the useful N-dozen elemental tools you'll use.
[1]: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-progra...