I absolutely agree that there is a brtal learning curve for new players. Figuring out wallets is a huge pain. Then you get to bronze and find the rewards are sad.
Its not that the developers want to get new players to spend more though. It's because they want to avoid a hoarde of bots coming in to mine all the dec and rewards away from real people.
I personally think there should be a different game to onboard people as one wallet holds all our items so it could be seemless transition from learner game to battle game. However, for now we are stuck with what we have :)
Good luck with the game and if you have issues I'll certainly try to help :)