I agree. And the 'low entry barrier' doesn't just apply to price and ease of use of the IDE. I found that the Arduino platform is the easiest to date by far for learning how to program in the C/C++ language. And the mastering of C/C++ is the biggest reward in my opinion that the Arduino platform offers to beginners. Once mastered, knowledge of C/C++ can be applied to nearly any microcontroller or PC and opens a big wide world of possibilities. I think that going with gcc C/C++ was the key decision that made the Arduino so successful and appealing to so many people of different experience and skill levels. If they had designed some kind of unique to Arduino 'beginners programming language' I don't think it would have been successful at all.
Lefty