D&D occupies a unique place in the RPG ecosystem. It was the first RPG and created the entire category it continues to dominate. It also tends to be the entry point for most people into the hobby. While there have been some alternate avenues, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade, most roleplayers get their start with D&D. Despite this D&D has a checkered history in attracting new players since the days of the original Basic Set. TSR and WotC after them have had acquisition strategies that were either confused or ineffective. When I heard that 4E was going to radically rebuild D&D, my biggest hope was that the new iteration would be good acquisition game. The hobby needs more roleplayers, plain and simple, and I hoped 4E might help deliver them.
My assessment after having the books for a few weeks: it fails.
I'd have to agree, but maybe from a different perspective. It would be interesting to know what percentage of new gamers begin playing with an older, "veteran" gamer. Back in 1981, I didn't have anyone to teach me how to play (I don't think the game had been around long enough). I bought the Moldvay Basic set (I was 11) and my 9 year-old brother and I sat down and tried to figure out how to play The Keep on the Borderlands with a couple of friends - so maybe it doesn't matter. But I'm in the process right now of teaching my kid to play, and I find myself drifting back to more simple game systems so things don't become too overwhelming (and interest dies). Don't get me wrong - I love 3.0/3.5 - it actually got me interested in D&D again. But what I've experienced in terms of new, younger gamers, is that they don't need all the video-game-like trappings of current game systems to keep their interest pegged - the social aspect (and a bit of wicked dungeon mastering) makes up for the "wow" effect that you find in computer RPGs. Or maybe I'm just really old - heck, "Zork" used to keep me glued to our old IBM family PC until the wee hours of the morning...