Hi Steve, your site has been a huge help to me over the past several years, and the least I can do is offer some free advice or informal lessons (over the phone or Skype).
After getting a degree from Berklee College of Music, I taught piano for five years. These days I compose music full time for TV shows, films, games and trailers. In amongst the hundreds of tracks I've written, some of them have been pretty similar to Depeche Mode's style. I have a good sense of what you need to know (musically and production-wise) to produce music like that.
I'm sure the support and advice here has been really helpful, but please feel free to get in touch with me - the offer of free informal lessons in composing/piano/production is definitely for real!
Have fun!
Mark Petrie
mark@markpetrie.com