It's so true--I had NO idea how diverse diabetes was until I entered this world myself! I work at a hospital (as a non-clinician) so I'm pretty well educated on health stuff, but I still had no clue about how complicated diagnosing or having diabetes could be.
I often feel like I still have no clue about what's going on with my own situation, over 2 years post-diagnosis, but your words make me realize that I have actually come a long way. When diagnosed I already did everything you're "supposed" to do (i.e., be thin, exercise, eat whole grains and veggies, etc.) and it was really hard wrapping my head around the weird-sounding dietary changes I had to make (eating meat--because I have allergies to a lot of things--was necessary for me, a former vegan!). Unfortunately, my diabetes consultants were not much help either (parroting the "party line" advice that I already knew and then giving a shrug when my situation didn't follow that conventional wisdom) but thanks to my metre and the support on this forum and my own reading of the research I've really learned a lot and gained much better control over my health.