Let me give you my 0.02 as an answer:
1) I'd doubt it if the intention was to make OpenACS unusable by non-developers. The new installation process makes it possible to install OpenACS in 15 minutes (including Postgres and AOLserver) and the move for .deb packages (hopefully ;)) as well as Knoppix CD should drive this further into the right direction. There is also effort going on to prepare OpenACS .vanity, a nice, prepackaged installation that allows you to experience the most often asked for features of OpenACS. So why did it not happen? Plain and simple reason: The people able to do this are swamped with work. So yes, I assume it will happen and I hope it will happen soon and in time to catch some of the new developers out there.
2) The easiest way to do it is to take the tutorial and try the problem sets. It might be worth to have a discussion forum for the Problem Sets, that would allow Newbies to exchange knowledge and ask questions relating to the PSets. Drawback. The PSets so far are only for developers, there is no PSet on how to *use* OpenACS out there. To make something like this happen is on my personal agenda, but that agenda is pretty long at the moment.
3) End user forum would be a very good idea. People are already asking a lot of question with this regard in the .LRN forum. But now comes the drawback. Most of the questions asked in this regard had to be dealt with using development. This is a drawback of the toolkit or a lack of imagination on part of the people answering. Though it is easy for the experienced people to just go and develop a solution, this is not possible for end-users. So, if we are to open up such a forum, we should encourage all people to refrain from giving solutions that involve coding. If there is not other way, then it is fair to state that though (and give pointers on how to do this). By scanning through that forum (once established) we'd have the chance to see what the minimum requirements for development training are for a person that wants to seriously customize their site..
