I agree that people who aren't at the point where they can install Arch easily based on the wiki guide are likely to have an inferior experience using it as opposed to something in the Debian / EL families.

That said, I learned a lot by constantly screwing up Arch installs I had no real reason to be doing. Eventually I learned to appreciate projects like Debian or Enterprise Linux a lot more.

I think that people choosing to do this stuff are doing it because they want to learn. I'm not convinced a few kids being precocious and getting in way over their heads "harms Linux Desktop". I think it's more likely that this is the next generation of Linux Desktop enthusiasts who could help make the dream a reality.