I'm confused by this. On the one hand, multiple Firmata sketches are distributed directly with the Arduino IDE under the Example menu, including updated sketches which handle the library compatibility changes since version 1.0 so I don't know what other model of 'support' you have in mind. As an open source project, it's as supported as the people who care about it enough to maintain it, update it and help users with its adoption. If any community is going to step up and do this support, it's the one represented in this forum. In any case if Firmata ain't broke, maybe it doesn't need fixing at all. Perhaps you think it's broke in some way.
The point is though, that it should not be up to this community to support Firmata. It was not written by the Arduino team. The version available to download at firmata.org is not compatible with IDE 1.0+, and hasn't been updated since the beginning of 2011.
The model of support I have in mind is quite simple. If you wrote it and published it, then you support it. There doesn't seem to anywhere on firmata.org to get support. I have never seen anyone that admitted to being from firmata.org offering support here when people have problems with it.
Take a look at the SD library for an example of how I believe it should be be done. You will see @fat16lib on here all the time giving excellent support and guidance to people.
Having said that, we will try and support people with Firmata problems, but we will also try to wean them off it. Even if you are running tethered, it is almost always more flexible and controllable to write a relatively simple sketch to replace Firmata.
using pyfirmata you can tackle language structures one by one, introduce the notion of values, types, expressions, named values (variables), named sequences of values (arrays), steps (statements), named groups of steps (functions) and so on, individually. Each can be introduced and explored step by step until the learner is comfortable with the concept in practice.
If you think that can't be done with C, then you are mistaken. C was one of a few languages that I actually learned in a classroom environment, and it was taught exactly like that.
I was surprised by the implication that standalone use of Arduino is somehow the one true way.
I didn't mean to imply that it was the 'one true way', but it is where a great many of the projects that do excite and inspire people lie, and Firmata does not support these sort of projects. I don't believe that the best way to engage people with the Arduino is to dumb it down, but to show them the possibilities. If they can see something that excites them, they will be more inclined to learn.