Completely agree. I would much rather just ask a new player:Exactly right. This is a change that's actually the most awkward for new players, who aren't aware of the ins and outs of how armor and weapon proficiencies work.
DM: "Ok for this cleric your thinking of, do you want to be a more warrior type, do you want to use your holy magic a lot, or do you want to be more of a priest, scholarly guy?"
Player: "um, warrior guy".
DM: "ok, so you are going to pick this holy order. And your going to have this heavy armor, so you'll be really defensive and hard to hit."
Player: "oh cool"
The game does assume a DM for a reason, lets be honest, most new players aren;'t just making characters for a game without oversight, they have a DM to help them. When I have new players, I don't even explain their options (as frankly that is a recipe for them to lose the spirit of the game). You don't ask new players, "what do you want to build", you ask them "what kind of character do you want to play?" and then the DM walks them through a few ways to do that, and let them pick.