So I'm not really a newbie but sort've feel like one since I haven't logged on in a while. Anyway, fired up the old program and remembered how painfully slow the block chain takes to "catch up" when you haven't run the client in a while. Is the latest version faster? I see this as a problem for new users, I already had about the first 150k blocks, I can only imagine how long it would take to start from scratch.
I don't know if it's faster, but it does still take forever. It is highly recommended to use a light client unless you're willing to wait.