General question: Using the VS Designer vs. the Source Code

I just finished Sams Teach Yourself ASP.Net in 24 Hours. I am now going through the Data tutorials here. I am a beginner at ASP.Net. One thing that I am having a little bit of trouble with is the idea that I am using the Designer in Visual Studio for just about everything except for a few code tweaks. I used to do a lot of HTML, JavaScript and CSS. I even did some programming (PowerBuilder). So, I am used to writing/typing code instead of using a Designer. (I always liked writing web pages in a text editor.) When I look at the code generated by the Designer in Visual Studio, I can understand what is going on there. But, to sit down and write that code instead of using the Designer to me seems impossible. There is just so much there. From what I understand, ASP.Net and Visual Studio were created to help streamline the code writing process. I suppose if I was used to writing VB code to create applications I might look at this from a different angle. But, I am learning ASP.N ...