I've always held the position that I didn't approve of picking and choosing elements of a religion and following only what you like. I still don't, really, but in a way, I am doing just that. I am finding a way to fit everything into my Islam, even if, as I've been open about, I don't agree with lots of things in "traditional" Islam. I thought hard on what Islam really was and to me, the main element was always the Qur'an. I needed to believe in the Qur'an as the word of God, or I couldn't be Muslim. I found that belief, so I found it acceptable to become Muslim.
I was never convinced about salat though, however much I love the ritual and think it's a great way to do just what it's meant to do: glorify God and keep a contact with God. Being a bit more on the "Qur'an only" side of Islam (and NOT Code 19), I could not find the belief that salat as 5 daily contact prayers was obligatory. I reasoned that it might not be obligatory to do it the Muslim way, but that rituals were just there to regulate us in our worship and were useful. So although it was not obligatory, not doing it resulted in not doing something that in the end was obligatory. Don't know if that made sense. It does to me even now. But this point of view makes it harder to get up and do the prayers than believing it's "bad deeds" to not do them (rather than just good deeds for doing them with a possibility of bad deeds for some cumulative lack).
So that was mostly an example of something I am in a way adding to my customized Islam. It's still "OK" for me since it can fall in my definition of Islam, and I am always very careful to be honest with myself, but I am still changing Islam to what I need it to be for me to be Muslim. Since the beginning I was honest with myself about that, but the focus was elsewhere.
I just wanted to put the focus on it now, right here. For those who didn't notice.
I'm tired... Gotta go straight to bed. Thanks for anyone who read and tried to get what I was saying.