Educate? Seriously? I'm sorry but a good media center UI shouldn't require any training. For the most part, it doesn't, BUT, I DARE you to have anyone new navigate the menu for more than 5 minutes and not 'accidently' pull up the menu. It's inevitable. Let's face it, there is no consistency in most skins menus. I navigate my main menu left/right, but my movies are shown up/down. My albums covers you can navigate up/down/left/right. Now this isn't XBMCs fault, it's up to the skin designer and the user to set this up, and I like the freedom to do it however I want. I personally love my setup. But the slide out menu is a relic from the x-box days, and is not nearly as intuitive as the rest of the menus.
Sorry, my mom's not a retard. She has a PHD. She doesn't need a 'retard mode'. But I watched her pull up this menu numerous times while learning the system. What was her reaction? She looked at the remote and hit 'back'. But this doesn't just exit the option menu, it sends her back to the main menu as well. Sorry, that's not intuitive.
If you don't want a mode with this disabled, fine. So how about mapping the slide out menu to a different button? I just feel the directional pad is a poor choice. Even I hit it when navigating my menu quickly. It's not a menu I need quick access to. How often do I change my views? Almost never. I find a view I like and keep it there. The other stuff as well, "flatten", "hide fanart", "toggle library mode", etc. -they don't need such quick access.
Good interfaces are hard, and I appreciate all the work that's gone into XBMC's. It's hard to create something simple to use but with powerful features. Very few products/devices do this well. Tivo is one good example. I hand my Tivo remote to my mom and she can navigate and use almost all features imediately, without me having to explain anything. But there is nowhere for her to 'accidently' pull up a menu.
