sit it down in the secondary

Due to laziness and a deep fear that I had totally messed up the brew I recently let a beer sit in secondary fermentation for about 4 weeks before I bothered (with little hope) to bottle it. 2 weeks later I just tried a bottle and although it still needs to sit for a bit it tastes much better than my previous (3) brews. Much smoother with less of that "home brew bite" that my previous brews had. Not sure whether to attribute this to the wait time or the recipe but I have to say I'm quite pleased with the results.

We would need to know how you did your other batches. How long in primary for the previous batches and this one? How long in secondary for your other batches? Were they all the exact same recipe using the exact same procedure? There are so many variables. But, in general, leaving a beer sit usually helps it smooth out. I say usually, because obviously that is not always the case or necessarily the reason. But from my own experience, when I switched from the 1-2-3 method to 3 weeks primary and skip the secondary alltogether, my beers improved dramatically.

Ya know, I wish I could answer your questions but the fact is that despite being a scientist by profession I am horrible at keeping track of things when I brew. I realize this violates a cardinal rule and it makes it much harder to figure out what you are doing wrong/right, maybe something I should work on but.....it actually raises another question that I've had since I started brewing; is brewing a science or an art? The best chefs clearly don't measure to the ml every ingredient that they add, yet people that brew seem to do so without exception. Now I realize that brewing is a much more biologically complex process than cooking a meal, but clearly there is no small amount of artistry involved.
To be clear, I consider myself a novice at both cooking and brewing, just a dude that likes to mess around in the kitchen, but I would be interested to hear what other, more experienced brewers think, are you scientists, or master chefs?