You are right, learning new things is an incredible gift and should be cherished.
I am not so convinced that forcing people to re-learn a user-interface that they are already familiar with, falls under the same category. Anybody old enough to remember Microsoft introducing the ribbons in Office? There was many a secretary that silently wept. They knew the functionality was there - they just could not find and use it (and I mean Office on Windows, which also dropped the menu structure, unlike the Mac).
It seems that in the computing realm people cherish such stunts. Maybe because it gives power to the pimply intern, that groks things for the first time vs. the seasoned veteran that now has to relearn all the moves - again. It is fun for a while but eventually gets old...
