Hi @dbro0808 ,
That sounds about right, the situation gets a bit more complicated, especially in a modern path tracer, of course, but that covers most of the basics. One thing to note, is that for each shading point, an extra ray is cast directly to one (random one) of the light sources. If something is blocking that ray, it is a shadow ray (in the Light Path Node; in some cases, the ray itself is called shadow ray), meaning there is a shadow contributon to that (surface) point. But you are right, when you write this down, it sounds a lot more complicated/confusing than it is (on this basic level).
As for your suggestion (which sounds great), you can make a separate Post here.
