I respectfully disagree on certain points too.
No Sales Text: How do you "sell" Role Playing to new players? Each person makes a different experience of it. D&D is trying to do this with visuals, its brand name and the promise of adventure. The World needs Heroes is vague but intriguing and anyone who could become a D&D player is likely to pick up the book and flip through it. Doing this will give the reader an idea of what D&D is.
The new edition does do something very well, it is viral and easy to pick up once you are playing with a group. My wife was always frustrated with 3.5 character creation and the PHB. She had no problem making characters and using this PHB. My best friend started playing D&D and roleplaying with this edition and he picked up all the rules and got the basics down for DMing by watching me (which I've been playing/ DMing for 25 years+) and after 20 hours of D&D4e he planned an adventure and ran a evening's session with very few hitches and did a great job. I've never seen previous versions of D&D do that. 4e got something right to make the game more viral.
The Great Wall: I agree with some of these points. I think there are some places where rules could have been indexed or laid out a bit better. The [W] was an issue for us at first.
No Newb Class: I would argue that all of the classes (except the warlock, warlord and wizard) can be played by new players. D&D 4e characters are easier to throw together but have lots of tactical choices. Basically pick your 2 at will, 1 encounter, 1 daily and class skills and go. This is less complicated than learn all of your different class special rules, pick the one you like, choose feats for the class (like fighter) or spells (like cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard) and spend your skill points (which is very frustrating to a new player to get right).
If the classes are still complicated you can use the two pre built ones in each section, and then if still, use Keep on the Shadowfell (which is the true entry product, though it should be clearly marked as such and isn't).
Not Enough Examples: Agree. Character creation examples would be very strong. We had some trouble with defenses, armor, and figuring out the attack and damage workspace's intentions. One of my players had issues with the initiative area because the DEX didn't say DEX mod.
Poor Reference Tools: They are ok, not great, but ok. I expected a bit more too, but so far I can use the index and TOC that is there to find most of what I need, and powers are listed by level in the class chapter any ways. I'd be curious how much trouble a true new player has, my wife had no trouble finding anything.
Core Experience Is Hardcore: Yes, it is hardcore and it should be. Ironically, we have one camp on here saying it is not hardcore enough (which it is guys, promise) and here is the very respectable Chris Pramas saying it is too hardcore. I think its hardcore level is very spot on, with a tad leaning to too much like Chris says. The powers, multiclassing options and combat section are going to overwhelm new players but veterans are going to love them. I think if the PHB didn't have this, alot of hardcore players wouldn't be crossing over to 4e.
A basic set (releasing in Sep-Nov I think) is going to use visuals, come with minatures and tiles/ maps, and give a simplified 4e experience that leads you to the PHB. I think this is going to work very well as the quick start rules in KOTS did a great job preping us for the PHB, we just flowed into using it.
WOTC knew they needed a strong word of mouth, community supported game that new players could be pulled into. Hence the lack of a true starter product right now, WOTC is getting all of us ready to demo 4e to the new players, heck the DMG even teachs DMs how to do this.
Give 4e a few months to get the rest of its pieces into play. I think before the end of the year most of the elements are going to be working nicely. Knock on wood for the DDI
. They will dig in and devour 4e just like they would any other edition. 
