My words can only act as fleeting highlights, as n00b nailed it - again. Storage Jam was Phish's first, true unfettered improsational foray into wide-open, free-form jamming. If you think about the potential of 3.0's "big stages" prior to Storage Jam (Festival 8's firey but cool Stones cover, NYE 2009 with the cannonball but not much musical exploration, NYE 2010's Meatstick) everything was "fun" but nothing, I would consider, was adventurous (and yes, I know how much Trey looooooooooved thge Meatstick gag). Still, it was all kinda safe, kinda wacky, and definitely Phishy... but didn't take a whole lot of "courage" to plan and execute. Creativity, yes; courage, no.
Knowing that context, the Storage Jam really came out of nowhere - totally unprecedented in "3.0" Phish, tapping deep into cosmic wells that were flourishing in 2003 and the late 90s... but untapped from March 2009-July 2011. Once Phish re-tapped that well, well, the proverbial floodgates opened to anything and everything that happened since the Storage Jam's conclusion.