These days, knowledge is a premium. No single sales person at a music store is going to know everything about everything. Even focusing on one department, that can range from a few dozen products to a few thousand.
Personally, I keep being asked to work at the stores because of my knowledge and knowing how to work with people, but I don't work there because of issues I'd care to not discuss involving my personal live.
There are so many controllers out there for lighting. There is no single right answer, but through discussion, we can rule out some controllers that might not be applicable for your application.
Personally speaking, with lighting controllers, it's best to plan for future expansion rather than go cheap and "bare bones". In my case, my DMX Operator bought in 2002 is still more than sufficient for nearly all my events. I can't complain about this console. I really like it. MyDMX was another smart purchase that will probably be as far as I will need to go for quite some time.
In regards to the 3D Visualizer, for me that is a helpful tool, but not totally necessary. For me, MyDMX is more of a way to easily label scenes and build as many as I need. Not saying that the 3D visualizer is bad, because it's not, it's really great. It's just, we each have our own requirements and needs.
For programming, I just suggest you set up your lights and see what you're doing. Ultimate 3D Visualizer, and the best way to do it with a console.
For how I do things, it's mainly color scenes mixed with some "specials", so you can see why the 3D visualizer isn't as critical in MyDMX. My biggest concern is power management.