Only recently made some attempts at OCing my system, and trying to learn more. Just DLd Everest Home freeware program, and it's very impressive but I'm not sure what I'm looking at and can't find much help with it. I'd like to know more, rather than submitting my results and having someone give me the thumbs-up or -down based on my system specs.
  Can anybody explain, in noob terms, some basic criteria for interpreting benchmarking results?

Everest has some benchmark tests at the bottom of it's menu. After the test, it shows your results in a window and compares it with many different PC configurations.

You look in the list for a similar configuration to your PC and compare it to your result.

To choose a similar model PC to your's for comparison, you need to match as closely as possible the exact chipset, CPU speed and RAM type/speed.

If you can't find a comparitive PC in the list, you may not be configured properly. If your PC shows a below average result in the comparison, you may not be configured properly, especially if there is a large discrepency.

Repeated tests will show you if your tweaking efforts are producing real and measurable results.

Another good program, and probably a bit more comprehensive in the benchmarks, is SiSoft Sandra Lite 2005.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=

Everest can be used to get other system info that helps us overclock and tweak, such as verification of cpu speed, front side bus speed and ram timings.