What??!! Does your friend have four thumbs and no brain? That's what most Linux users do (and I don't know if you are or are not one of them, just stating from experience): If a user can't figure something out, it's the user's fault, not the interface.
That's not what I said. I offered a counterexample (the experience of another user, me) that called into question the conclusion drawn from your example. So it's not a matter of some emotional investment in the value of the UI, which is what you seem to be inferring from my post, but just the result of my experience. Nor have I heard anyone else report the kinds of problems you note, though that doesn't prove much -- I haven't asked and have no idea if they'd volunteer or not.
Bottom line, your friend's experience is a definite outlier in the sum total of Droid experiences of which I'm aware. Why isn't it reasonable for me to question the reason?