The way 5e does it is certainly more 'playable', but so much of the intent behind the rules and their design relies on people knowing what came before
Not at all. None of the people I’ve recently introduced to D&D played before 5E, and every single one of them understood how combat worked immediately with barely any explanation from me. The only thing that really trips people up is for some reason new players always their their cantrips are all bonus actions and I will usually need to repeat a few times that they aren’t. Not sure what that’s about.
