I think the subtitle lets them know this is a safe place to start on their quest to being an accomplished mp3car er.. person. It's like in a video game, where you fight monsters that are hardly strong enough to do damage. There's always some stronger characters around to help you, and some stronger characters that don't care. It's the same in all aspects of life, there are those who will help, and those who won't, but most of the time in life we aren't granted a safe zone. Fortunately we are able to provide a defined area where no question is going to be flamed. If it is, it will be dealt with by the moderators.
There are sever people on the forum who do a nice job helping people out, but there are others who are elitists, the elitists can ignore the Newbie section, and that's fine. At least now we have an area where the senior members can contribute to the Newbies with out the Newbies worrying about getting attacked.
As far as people not commenting in these threads, sure some people will avoid them, but many of us use the "view new threads button" (which is currently the second arrow from the left?) and read either all the threads or whatever looks interesting.
If you don't feel like reading Newbie threads, nobody is going to take offense to it. Just go about your business. If you want to post here, please do

and be kind to your junior members.