“How unreasonable is it to demand a certain degree of professionalism from the w3c? All I want is to point people to the w3c when they have any intentions of finding out more about html, css, javascript, accessibility or whatever other front-end related topic, without feeling embarrassed to do so or without putting those people off before they even started?”
So the problem is that the w3c is obtuse and hard to use as a lay person, but also that their most recent moves to improve their image do nothing for improving the author's sales pitch for standards-based web technologies, which, let's be honest, is not really their job[1]
To be fair, the w3c is a bit obtuse, but it's also not an educational outreach organization, it's a standards body that makes recommendations (and the recommendations are actually targeted towards browser implementers first, and end-users second). I don't think the author or his clients are really their target audience.