Literally just today made a 1 day alt and duelled someone whos been playing a couple of months because he thought the same. We had a couple fights; one he couldn’t kill me, the other he bested me but i think it was a lot closer than he was expecting.
Whilst new players can definitely be given a better start than they do now (see my thread i made yesterday), it’s not as bad as most people say.
Skills don’t need a fundamental re-work like you are suggesting. New players just need a few more starting skills to level 2-3 and a tutorial that isn’t half the old system and half a new system (it has not meshed well).