Using Dependency Injection and IoC in Laravel 4 controllers

I have never been a big framework user when it comes to PHP. While the language is not without its quirks and oddities that a good framework could help smooth over, I just never got around to really investing in a framework, as there is always a significant amount of initial effort needed to understand what the capabilities and limitations are, and whether or not it is truly suitable for a project. With that in mind, I typically just found it easier to write my own stuff.