It sounds like you are now in charge of the effort to improve the new user experience for OpenACS/.LRN :)
Honestly there are any number of suggestions, but little effort has been put into implementing these. I suggest you start a forum thread to get people interested and organized in one place. I know several people who are interested in this type of project.
Thanks, Dave. That's very exciting. I'd love the job :)
Look for a forum thread shortly. As I was recently told on irc, the biggest problem with acquiring new blood is the slow learning curve. So let's try and come up with some new strategies to flatten this curve.