Yes, I can think of programs that can only be designed and implemented by top 1% of programmers.

Regarding "programming is not a [...] thing to waste those precious early years on.", well, this is not something I'd like to argue about, just want to say that learning programming by a kid doesn't have to be (and, of course, shouldn't be) a 8h or more daily activity, like for a professional adult programmer. I think an hour per week of learning programming can be a valuable exercise in logical thinking, creativity and problem solving. It can easily be a lot of fun, too.