When I first learned guitar, I learned my chord shapes and their names, and the A and E based barre chords. I understood the major scale to the point that you moved up one fret from an E to get an F and from a B to get a C...all the others required you move up 2 frets to get to the next note. Because of E and A based barre chords, I knew the notes on the E and A strings.

And that was about it :).

The net result was that my fretboard knowledge was very visual and EXTREMELY light on theory.

For somebody like me, the CAGED system was appealing because it fit into my understanding of things.

If you are following the program here and learning the notes on the fretbaord and how triads are put together, CAGED may not be as helpful to you. It doesn't have to be the "be and end all"...take from it what is useful to you.

The C and D thing that Chris mentions about CAGED confused me because they are really the same thing when you look at it.

I'll add that I find the moveable triad concept along with chord inversions to be a really powerful tool that can help both soloing and rhythm playing. You can take your cowboy chords and open the fretbaord wide open with them!