Skill Challenges & what DND has in common with Lego

There's a thread over on Reddit about skill challenges, which got me thinking about my attempt at a skill challenge in our last game.  Here's my comment:

Is this a case of "skills for the new GM"?
By that I mean, is a skill challenge a thing in and of itself, or is it a way for a new GM to block off a section of the adventure he's put together and toss out some bonus experience?
If you're an experienced GM and don't need the structure of a skill challenge, great, ignore them, but for a new GM I can see them being a useful way to make pockets of action.
Of course, the downside is that a new GM may not be able to make them interesting.  I'm a new GM, I tried my first skill challenge last session and while it wasn't a complete failure, it wasn't the nerve-wracking pulse-pounding moment that I'd hoped it would be (possibly because nobody could roll anything above a 3, so I could blame the dice...)

Basically I didn't plan it out very well... there was only one solution, and only 2 of the party members could even attempt it.  There was a long hallway with pressure plates that set off fire traps that did 1d6 pts of damage every round.  The walls had shelves (for corpses), so climbing along the wall to the spot where the trap could be disabled should have been easy for our rogue, but her dice hate her, so she tried and fell, tried and got 1/3rd of the way down the hallway, failed and fell, failed and fell onto the floor, and got burnt as she hustled back to the group.

My bard was the only other one with disable device, and he managed to make it 2/3 of the way down the hallway before he fell... he got burnt and ran to the end of the hall and disabled the trap.

It was amusing, but not very dramatic.

Next time I'll be sure to involve as many party members as possible, and be more open to alternative solutions to the problem.  (Can a bard with mage hand and disable device disarm a trap from a distance?)

In a bigger, philosophical sense, the thread got me thinking about how lucky I am to have an easy going group.  Everyone plays to have fun, and the rules are just tools to use to have fun.  DND rules are just like legos, if you want, they serve a specific purpose, but really, you can build with them whatever you want.