You have a great attitude.  Some take critique poorly and refuse to
learn from it.  You're heading in the right direction.  Keep shooting
so you can develop that "eye" that is so vital to all photographers.
Helen

This is funny; looking at the thumbnails, I thought the 'bokeh flower'
on the left had a better composition (the fully saturated one). In
retrospect, they are both fine, nice shot, interesting study. It's funny
because I was going to comment that some of the compositions are perhaps
too centered, then I thought I was looking at two different
framings/crops of the same scene but it's just the desaturation of the
background. A good lesson there about the power of color.

I think I do like the fully saturated version better because the orange
in the upper-right gives the composition a little more life. That is in
spite of the desaturated one being 'obviously' less centered. The orange
streak also kind of emanates from the smaller flower in an arc across
the frame which ties things together better.

Thanks for sharing!

"Actually some of the photos on that gallery were p&s (the
"compact bee" one) with my Ixus55",

That's the pic I was referring to, the "compact bee" one.  I saw the
make of the camera at the bottom and thought that's what you were
using for all of them.  A 30D is an excellent camera.
Helen