Just a musing, but perhaps now is a good time for the resurgence of Flash or something like it. A lot of designers I know learned ActionScript because they needed to gradually up their Flash game.

There is a gradual path into programming, but right now we've built up our frameworks to be tools for devs, not for normal people. I see a lot of apps that dumb it down too much (templates), and not enough that successfully expose you to as much complexity as you want/need. That's not to say they're bad apps, just that there really isn't something on the spectrum halfway.