"A user with absolutely no Linux or terminal experience"
I can speak to this. Both my wife and roommate use ubuntu referbished laptops I supplied. Neither knows what a terminal is or how to use it. It just works(tm).
But even distros like Mepis or Knoppix were good pre-ubuntu.
When hardware works out the box, everything is fine and dandy. As soon as it doesn't like with many OSs, it's a time waster, you loose your confidence with the entire project.
But how do you see the push Canonical did with Ubuntu? As I remember, the sentiment was that they were going to make Linux usable and easy for the average user, instead of going after advanced users. And IMHO they really succeeded in doing that, surely you're not saying that was all there before?
A user with absolutely no Linux or terminal experience can use an Ubuntu system for writing letters/emails/browsing and doesn't need to ever touch the terminal (provided all hardware is supported).