I see a lot of stuff relating to the Stacks plugin and the great variety of stacks available to use with it. Problem is I really have no idea about the logic/rationale for using it. Can someone help or steer me to someplace where I can get a simple explanation of:
What is Stacks and why would I want or need to use it
What are the advantages (or disadvantages) of using Stacks rather than the basic RW interface and features.
One simple answer for both of your questions:
‘Stacks’ is a 3rd party plugin which enables you to use different add-on stacks from many developers. Stacks add almost infinite possibilities for you to create and design your web pages. Even those stacks that apparently duplicate features of built-in plugins are always more feature-rich (and often more reliable).
Once you figure out stacks you will wish all your pages were “stacks.” Just go look at all the neat 3rd party addons that work with stacks. There are even “stacks” add-ons that affect the whole website, not just the stacks page. It give developers a “window” to inject code into RW pages.