The math isn't straightforward. With a high enough rate of churn, there can be more onboarding work hours than post-onboarding work hours, especially if the onb

The math isn't straightforward. With a high enough rate of churn, there can be more onboarding work hours than post-onboarding work hours, especially if the onboarding ramp up time takes a while (as it presumably would if you only optimized for experienced use). And high rates of churn are not exactly uncommon. Also, everybody goes through onboarding, and initial impressions have a lot of power. It's pretty easy to create a system that everyone hates just because it's a little difficult during onboarding. Social reinforcement can be stronger than reality. (Personally, I still lean towards optimizing for experienced use, if you can do it without sacrificing the onboarding experience too much. Hotkeys that the new employee never needs to see or know about are a typical example, though I prefer a smoother ramp by mentioning the key on applicable menu items. The newbie can ignore it, the intermediate user can learn from it, the experienced user can ignore the menu.)