Geez, you guys make it sound like I'm a style nazi or something,
But I also like to experiment, and come up with strange combinations and use weired ingredients as well. I probably have entered more beers in in categories 21-23 than any other I enter into. In fact most of my experiments have done the best in contests.
I mean I've used, 50+ year old honey, Jaggery, Date Syrup, Date Palm mollasses, every grade of brown sugar, mascerated dates, mexican hot chocolate disks (both in the boil and as mash liquid), ginger orange marmalde, lime marmalade, candied ginger, tortilla chips, my own chili powder, whole dried and smoked chilli, I've roasted my own grain and even soaked it in simple syrup and then roasted it, I've been experimenting with priming with things like date syrup. And I've used all the "normal" "strange" ingredients like pumpkin, spices, citrus peels, stuff like that. I've also researched historical beers to try to recreate old and regional styles as well.
I just was specifically talking about how I like to approach learning new styles, but I'm not wedded to them.