there’s nothing wrong with a persistence-centric approach like you took, but there’s also certainly nothing wrong with catering to your audience.

we should strive to provide a better gateway than we had when we were young.

That's a good remark.

In general, lowering the entry barrier is good. But you are right that we may now be scared of anything that doesn't have a very low entry barrier.

On that topic, see the reaction to Rust. Rust has pros and cons, but perhaps the fairly high entry barrier shouldn't be considered a real issue for people who deal with very sophisticated abstractions and requirements all day long?