I always like to share my experience in my first season in ESEA because it practically sums up how I feel.
My first season was back in S3 of ESEA. There was no IM so you basically had amazing teams in Open as well as shit ones. My team was garbage, absolutely trash. Back then, information wasn't as available to teams as it is today. There really weren't guides, no talks about strategy and hardly any casts. When there was, they were casted by leogeo which meant there was no talk about why teams did certain things so as a lower level team, we had no strategy (only pushing with uber was a foreign idea). Anyways, we got ripped in our first match.. and our second.. and our third.... We ended up not winning a 6v6 game the entire season BUT we learnt how to play the game properly. Up against opponents much better than you, it forces you to learn how to play correctly rather than picking up bad habits against worse opponents.
If getting torn to shreads in a 5-0 blowouts makes you consider quitting your team then quit now, no sense putting time into this game. The next season, we returned and made playoffs in Open. That was a pretty big deal back then when there was no IM and only 8 teams in open playoffs. Made every night of rape well worth it.
http://play.esea.net/teams/25774?tab=league&period[type]=seasons&period[season_start]=85
All wins are FFW except one that was 6v5. Back then, teams died a lot faster.