I think you raised a few good points here. Getting into Gridcoin is not the easiest and being a "dumb user" is simply not possible. What seems logic and everyday business to us, might be a hurdle too high for many others. For example, I could never imagine quiet a lot of my friends getting through the entire process of installing and maintaining the Gridcoin wallet.

I also think that the payout method we have right now for Gridcoin is not ideal. RAC is hard to see through. Furthermore, as you mentioned, it is impossible to just join and get the coins coming without joining grcpool. It would be a much more pleasant way to get paid based on the credit one acquiered in a certain timespan - let's say once a day - and see direct results of what you have accomplished.

Now comes the BUT:

Even though there are some paid developers for Gridcoin, none of them do it as their full time job (as far a I know). These people develop Gridcoin in their free time that they could just as well spend with their families, their hobbies or sleeping (right now, some of them probably lose sleep). Since the community of Gridcoin is - even though it grows rapidly - still rather small, I learned that just bringing up an idea is not enough. There will be no one actually building up on it. We have to actually take matters into our own hand and improve what we don't like. That is the beauty and the burden of decentralised systems.

Now comes the BUT BUT:

It is still very valuable to write about the concerns you have and simply put your ideas out there. Posts like yours have an immense value for the community and start discussions about important topics that might be picked up by the devs.

I personally have not written any code yet for Gridcoin and probably am as "dumb" a user as it gets in Gridcoin. Therefore I do not mean anything above in a judgemental way, I have simply learned that during the months I have been involved in Gridcoin and think it is not the most obvious thought out there.