See, this is really an example of what I'm talking about. You wouldn't need to learn about microtones if you didn't follow the twelve-tone standard before. I'm pretty sure that the brain by itself is pretty sloppy in regard to intervals and even more so with tones and keys.

12-tone standard actually falls nicely out of the natural harmonics inherent in music though. So there's a pretty good reason for using 12 distinct tones.

That doesn't mean you can't have amazing music once you break away from them, but just because these deviations are interesting and cool doesn't mean they aren't useful and normative for a reason.