Birdie,
You are correct. 99% of the time you will not need to access your database directly. However, that being said, it is always good to know how the engine works when you step on the gas and nothing happens. Your database is the engine of your Moodle site. Take sometime to read up on phpMyAdmin and your database (do a google search) and if you can (if it is not a production site) play around alittle.
Ralph