I think catering to the lowest common denominator is the wrong strategy though. If you're writing a tool that isn't trivial, you want to cater to the perpetual

I think catering to the lowest common denominator is the wrong strategy though. If you're writing a tool that isn't trivial, you want to cater to the perpetual intermediate, which is where most people end up. No one wants to be a beginner forever, but most people don't need to become power users either. So you allow beginners to board, give them features they can use, and slowly show them more and more complex things till they feel confident using your product. That should be inherent in the design of the product. Then start adding features for experts that may screw things up if you don't know how to use them, but hide them a bit further in the tree.