You missed his point. Yes, what you are doing is replicating the situation that worked for you. And this program is probably a good one for students who are still in college and want to build a company over the summer.
But anyone who has left college and is working for a living should be able to save up one months living expenses every month. (EG: make 25 an hour, gross $4k, $3.6k after taxes, live on $1,500 a month or so.) Thus if you work for 6 months as a contract programmer (or better yet as an employee for a startup) you will then have 6 months of expenses to build your business. Thus there's no reason that not getting YC funding should be an impediment to strting a business.
The strong impression I get from people who post here, and the people who attented startupschool is that they are focused on getting funding. They want to go to YC, or move to the bay area for connections to funding. Landing a VC deal is seen as the end goal.
This is not an entreprenurial focus. Were you focused on VC funding for viaweb, or were you trying to build a business?
The original poster is right-- build a business-- that should be the focus. Not getting funding. Not worrying about what you're going to do if you don't get into YC. YC should be seen as a possible opportunity, but not critical to success.
And since YC only happens twice a year and is limited in the number accepted... waiting for the next round of YC indicates that building the business or product is not the number one priority.
As an investor, I'd rate highly someone who was living off of their own savings to build their product-- they have shown the gumption and have even more skin in the game.