Task Bar:

There is in fact an "inconsistency" there, as Bruno points out: In Windows all menus are drop down, except for the start button/task bar ones, in its default bottom location.

But, I can't find a reason why that would necessarily be "bad" or for novices. There are many parameters to "measure" or "evaluate" this choice (whatever the reason for it was, be it accurate UX research or simple need to differentiate from OS/2, OSX, etc.).
If you read UX literature, you'll find all sorts of studies, ranging from eye movement patterns, to the importance of "habit", to what metaphors our brain sees so that a solution rings the bell more or less than another, etc.
I also remember arguments made in terms of the value of differentiate the location you go to to START an application (bottom in our case) from that where you would operate an already OPEN application (top), both in terms of ergonomic and in terms of psychological comfort. Others maintaining that a bottom task bar was more natural for most users think that "down" is where you would normally look to find stuff in the real world (your real physical "desk" is thought as "down" and not "up", so that you would feel more at home when looking "down" to start something new or resume work, and "up" when in the middle of some work - app running -).

Recently, I've read a many articles concerning measuring the time needed to reach a target on the screen with your mouse, showing that far but larger targets are quicker to reach than close but smaller one - incidentally, this is a study MS has used to support their W8 tile-based start menu, which works exactly well as expected for me, and is at the same time criticized by possibly half of the internet; I often find myself in disagreement with half of the Internet -.

Ultimately, a combination of habit, mindset, input device used, preference for shortcuts or mouse pointer, makes each of us quite unique. While a general usage pattern can be detected, I would guess, that tells little about ndividuals and their preference and, therefore, what is best for each of them.
I would stay very far away from calling GUI "novice" or "expert" anyone based on where they place Windows taskbar.

Now that I think about it, when I started to use Windows as my main desktop OS (Windows NT 4.0) I was coming from OS/2 and I immediately placed my task bar at the top, where I kept it for years. it's been on the bottom from Windows 2000, just as a personal test. I never found any particular difference in daily job, that I can think of.

Just my 2 cents, of course.