With that said, to really get the most out of SQL Server (and most likely most other SQL implementations) you really have to do your homework and put in the time to go through the features. Perhaps more than anything this is why NoSQL has taken off-- it's very simple to get going. At user groups I hear a lot of people saying they selected MongoDB because "They had millions of rows and SQL just couldn't keep up" and to me it just sounded like no one in their organization had any solid SQL experience.
It's too bad MS didn't build a 'SQL Admin' into their product that sent an email on occasion to say things like "You have a query that is called frequently and could be sped up if you simply included this column in this index. Here are some details!"