Great post, Grey Acumen, and one that makes a lot of sense. The issue of how to design games that can be enjoyed by all, while still providing challenge for experts is one that everyone faces. Twilight Princess attempted to solve this problem by making everything about the game easy enough for newcomers to enjoy - which is fine, but left me, personally, feeling unsatisfied. Galaxy's approach of making some stars ridiculously easy, but others very challenging worked much better.
One thing I'd like to see is more games building in multiple difficulty levels; some do, but not nearly enough. The Civilization games (which I worked on briefly) offer many, many difficulty levels ranging from the pathethic to the impossible. Sure, 80-90% of gamers will never touch anything beyond the easiest setting, but for those who want to push themselves, it's there. For another example, I played Super Paper Mario earlier this year, and while it was fun, it was also very simple to complete. After beating it once, I never touched the game again. Imagine if there was a "Hard" mode, where your attacks did half damage and enemy attacks did double damage - that would make the platforming/RPG combo a lot more interesting! Considering how easy that would be to code, it's a shame it didn't happen.
At least my Fire Emblem games always include an Expert setting for the masochistic.
End of 2008 totals: Wii 42m, 360 24m, PS3 18.5m (made Jan. 4, 2008)
