That's exactly the sort of situation I am talking about. When there is a problem with some piece Ubuntu's ecosystem, the answer is "It's not Ubuntu's fault, RTFM for <other software>."

Knowing that information about Ubuntu goes out of date and that changing the search criteria helps: [1] doesn't make Ubuntu less complex [2] prevents it from being as user friendly as Windows for a broad audience.

Exactly this. I've found (on OSX) that an Alfred custom search to quickly do a Google Last Year only search is incredibly useful.