That's probably true like both of you said. If LCD sellers all have the decency to include a type 3362 10K potentiometer that so easily plugs into a bread board, there will be a lot less requests then. That still won't solve the problem since only few includes a pot.
At some point the newbies will have to realize plug and play has a limit and a perfboard/breadboard is needed for every project. Maybe that's it! Arduino forum should have a list of minimal equipment for every newbie, like one UNO, one 10K potentiometer, one small breadboard at least 30 rows prefer with buses, one bag of random resistors and LEDs, one set of jumpers, at least include 5 colors and 30 pieces, one simple multimeter. What do you guys think?