- Is there perhaps an existing skin with a more transparent design I
might use for study and modification?
I've recently started creating my own skin, and went through MonoBook, labeling the respective PHP parts with their respective function. If you're interested, I could send that to you
I've created a page outlining the basic structure of a typical MediaWiki skin file: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning It's not perfect (and the code listed there is partly untested), but I hope it will help you get started - and also serve as a reference for myself.
Corrections and improvements are of course welcome...
-- F.