I don't get how not being easy to get started with can be considered advantageous.
If so, why not use the elite-ary linux-from-scratch? Virtually any linux or GNU feature not either used by millions or especially shiny severely lacks documentation forcing you to analyze the code and/or playing around so the learning phase takes a lot larger, plus of cause that knowledge isn't useful for a long time as the devs might decide their monolithic and bloated applications are too bothersome to maintain and replace them by (once again monolithic and bloated) rewrites that aren't compatible on neither API nor command line parameter level.
IMO FreeBSD is easy to use, or at least I had no issues when getting started with it. Also, getting started with OpenBSD was easy too before of that. Actually I was surprised back then (maybe exactly because I was coming from linux/gnu) that so many things worked "out of the box" and how good the FAQ/handbook actually covers the basics.
Linux/gnu isn't any easier to use then FreeBSD (or OpenBSD, or even NetBSD), in fact it's harder. But when people first use linux/gnu, they usually have "extensive" experience with Microsoft Windows, and also have little "advanced" usage in mind. There are fairly large projects within the gnu world that try to imitate (parts of) Windows OS and that results in these people feeling familiar with the system that somehow looks and feels like (but under it's cover is very different to) the Windows OS they are used to. So additionally, it should be considered how much time people required to get that used with Windows OS. If it was considered to be so straightforward that everything is self-explanatory, Microsoft wouldn't ship "Getting started" and "Installation" leaflets with Windows copies, so if it was not required for someone to read those obtained that knowledge was obtained somehow else (most usually by seeing it being used by other people), and that time needs to be considered too.