I think that you are correct, Dave, in that those who know least complain most. This does not seem unlikely to me; those who know how, do not see the limitation and, therefore, have no complaint. I am reminded of the occasional request for more developed string functions - invariably someone with expertise describes a way to accomplish the task... but this does not answer the complaint. The complaint, "I don't know how to..." is rarely adequately answered by, "I do [know how]." Similarly, I wonder how comforting it is for inexperienced users to hear, "The answer is on page 262 of the datasheet." I acknowledge the correctness of this answer, I only doubt the adequacy of it. I feel I'm being generous when I suggest that 1 in 10 will find the information and make use of it with enough success to deem the process fun or even repeatable.

Arduino has become very popular over these past few years. I believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that on Sparkfun or Adafruit someone comes looking for help making this module or that device work. A more experienced user says, "Oh just a minute..." and almost instantly a sketch (I believe that's what they're called) appears. Presto - everybody can now use the module without effort or delay. In a world where, thanks to smart phones customers no longer dial a 10 digit phone number, this is an acceptable answer - reference to a datasheet is not. I don't know that most of these people would argue that Aurduino is more powerful - and they sure won't say it's cheaper, but if it does what they want... isn't that better? I think that many of us fall into that same category. Is Darrel's interrupt package perfect? No, but for most of us it is much easier than writing our own... therefore better. So much so - for a novice like myself - that the first time I saw it, I stood up from my desk and applauded!

In short, I do not think that products that come with the disclaimer, "to effectively use this product you must spend months learning to read datasheets and arrange programming syntax" are destined to be as popular as those that offer learning curve the length of the drive-thru line at McDonald's.