As a blog newbie who is trying hard to learn, I am sympathetic to the problems of understanding both Codex and sometimes even support writings. But, on the other hand, it is unreasonable to expect the volunteer support folks to start from scratch to provide all the necessary background information in response to each question.
May I suggest that someone write a set of sequential documents in Codex (or a separate text) to educate the newbie? Yes, there are such documents, but they don't do the job and they don't fit together as a single textbook. Terms are not always explained, and referring to the glossary is clumsy and doesn't always answer the issues arising from the Codex document because they are written separately.
Topics of the "textbook" might include:
What is a style sheet, a template, a page, a post, etc. (Yes, with research you can find Codex info on each of these, but they don't fit together nicely as a text.)
Where (as a URL, perhaps) can you find the various files, posts, parameters, templates, etc. that WP uses, and how can you access them? What is the structure of MySQL, and should I ever get into it directly? If so, how?
What's the proper method for making changes of various kinds? When should you do it offline and upload it, or do it from within Admin? When do you need to make changes directly in html, and how? If you instead edit the displayed text in Admin/Manage/Page, how can you control things that don't show up in that display? (Do I even know the right questions to ask?)
And much more.
Before publishing the text, several complete newbies should review it and mark everything they don't understand. At that point I predict it will be mostly red ink. So start over again and get it reviewed again. And again. Until a total newbie can read the textbook and create a blog and know what he or she is doing besides just blindly following a cookbook recipe written in a strange language by fifty authors who don't necessarily communicate with each other.
Can that be done without paid writers? I don't know.
