Yeah, some of their barriers to entry on certain pieces of functionality are a little annoying for genuine new users.
Fortunately, on the functions that matter, they blow their competition out of the water. Before SO came around, I dreaded seeing Experts Exchange links in my search results.
Given how long SO has been around, however, I would value a UI refresh over chat.
Yeah, the expert sex change site has NEVER gotten me to sign up. There is one site though that has links to being able to chat with "a real lawyer", "a real doctor" etc. in realtime, and that is very tempting. Especially when their ad is exactly on an article where you need to find something out. What about that?
Fortunately, on the functions that matter, they blow their competition out of the water. Before SO came around, I dreaded seeing Experts Exchange links in my search results.
Given how long SO has been around, however, I would value a UI refresh over chat.