I came in from out of town for the April 2013 workshop on a partial scholarship, and since then haven't been in touch with the community, apart from the six follow-up chats with an instructor. I don't know about the typical out-of-town experience -- I was a little underwhelmed leaving the workshop, largely because I felt I'd already made much of the shift that Anna and Qiaochu describe and things were already going very well for me. (Those two points are related -- I agree that making that shift is really valuable. I can also believe that the workshops effect it in some people.)

I think that in the longer term, there was still a lot of value in taking a lot of ideas and ways of thinking that were floating around unconnected in my head, and putting them all under a more accessible and salient "CFAR" umbrella. It's hard to quantify that effect relative to where I might have been without the workshop, but I still feel good about it 10 months out.