I have to admit that after this post I have felt somewhat like a fool. I also have come to realize that my trepidation has nothing to do with operations, but rather has more to do with what I like about the hobby which isth use of light, color, and paint to create an illusion.
It has to do with the contrast between the 3 foot rule and the camera. It has to do with making a fundamental shift in my tollerences between these levels of preception. In HO, I have come into agreement with myself about the level of detail I produce and how to frame it with the camera. In other words, if I view the scene at 3 feet, I am satisfied, and if I frame the scene in my camera, I am satisfied.
With N scale, I bring the same level of skill to the table in terms of physical size, I can paint a 1/32 inch straight line in either scale. At three feet either scale looks good. The difference comes in what the camera picks up. If I frame a house in HO with a camera, the digital image shows some places where I could do better, but I have reached a level of okayness about it.
When I frame the same house in N scale, the 2 dimentail image is the same, but the physical size is 1/4 of HO. All the lines are rough and the techniques that I used in HO to show weathering are uneven blotches of paint in the eyes of the camera. I have not developed a sense of okayness about it yet.
But I take hope in the fact, that as Dave pointed, I'm just starting in N scale.