I know this has been said many times before but it needs saying again. Documentation basically sucks and unless you/I are prepared to be either very patient or are very lucky, then finding things is a royal pain in the backside.
I'll admit to being new to Drupal, I accept it's a damned steep learning curve. I've got decent HTML, CSS and limited PHP skills - as I guess many have who turn up here.
The real problem is there's no way a newbie can realistically get beyond the kind of basics you'd find in a WordPress or EE without tearing their/my hair out trawling through these fora. OK, so Drupal is aimed more at the geek end of things. But even that's a poor excuse and as I trawl through posts, it's clear that even smart people struggle.
What's needed IMHO is a set of simple instructions that spell out:
1. Template structures - how they fit together, styling ground rules for Drupal and general 'shape' of Drupal sites
2. Taxonomy -how it works, what it does, its limitations and how to kick start your efforts.
3. Roles - how these work, the controls that can be put on different classes or user
4. Navigation - how to set up, how to hide from general view
5. A set of simple examples that illustrates each main point
This is not a complete list but would serve as a good start. In addition, this set of docs needs aggregating and putting somewhere central (I'd suggest Wkipedia - great resource, works very well for WP community) as well as prominently on the Drupal forums.
