Well said! This was far and away the most common complaint while I've been telling folks about Lemmy on Reddit, and I think plopping them right into a familiar, simple design would go a long way. At any rate, it's good to see more UI people get involved since it feels a little neglected among the 3PAs and front ends, in my opinion.
My other main complaint was that people don't get how or where to sign up, and join-lemmy.org is just a bad introduction to the concept of instances. Would love to see that piece of Lemmy improved as well!