One very useful discipline that has remained with me from those days is making the most of what you've got equipment-wise - most computer soundchips were comparatively primitive, yet with some lateral thinking and plenty of ingenuity you could squeeze a lot more out of them than many people expected.
I've continued to use this approach during my subsequent sound designer years, even when the resources at my disposal were comparatively vast, and have been able to explore many fascinating alleyways and peculiar end points with lots of synths, simply because I always strive for the unusual. Extreme parameter values or combinations of parameter values can yield many unexpected results if you're patient
Martin
