Wonder How To? Me too.
The real problem in my opinion (based on my highly scientific methods and procedures...not) is one of time. More often than not, we don't give ourselves enough time to sit thru the videos, digest what they're teaching and then apply the technique ourselves. It's a bummer, I don't have any clear answers for you.
However, I do have another resource that I stumbled on to yesterday and it's one that you should check out. The site is called wonderhowto.com and it's all about answering those kinds of questions. Now, I should say that this is not just about animation but about everything and I mean EVERYTHING so be warned! So, you might start by typing in something like After Effects or Photoshop in the search field. What you'll find is quite a diverse set of tutorials including some you already know about like CreativeCow.net and Andrew's Videocopilot. The fun stuff is the ones you discover like Indy Moguls. I sat through their entertaining video on how to blow up people in half and while it didn't cover After Effects, it did give me an idea of what to do for such a visual effect. So, give it a whirl and tell me what you think.
And of course, how could I mention blowing somebody up without including the video? It's funny and informative, but not for everybody.