Just an update - what a difference a month and a half can make.  I still have layers, but I am able to keep them reasonably under control.

Yesterday I did a half-updo bun (like on styg's avatar) +no net or bun cover!+.  It worked great, but I did *shiver* cheat and use a light spritz of hairspray since I was leaving at noon to attend a wedding/reception and wouldn't be able to do any fix-ups the rest of the day.

Any way, I'm beginning to see some progress on my hairstyling -- I think I'm down to 8 thumbs instead of "all thumbs"

I have a question...Is it bad to have layers when you want to grow long hair? Why does everyone want to grow them out? Should I grow out my layers? If so, why?

Yup, it's just a preference.  One-length tends to make hair look thicker, and like BB said is easier to maintain.  For me, my hair is already thick so I get layers put in to balance it out. 

This is by no means a rule, just an opinion, but I think layers look really good on wavy/curly hair. 

Cynde

be careful with that, i went to several stylists during my layer adventure and not a single one cutted the same way! so i think since the style never ends up the same twice, a lot of damage might still be up there. of course i had on top of that the perversion of only liking deep razored layers, a cut that actually damges hair rather than removing the damge. i had to do hours of s&d after every haircut 
i'll be so happy when they're gone and it will take still quite a while since i don't plan to do any trims over 1/2" at once.