Great post, saved for future use. I'd say myself that while Fedora may not be aimed at beginners, it is pretty good for beginners nonetheless. It's what I started on (after dipping my toes in Tails, which also has it's use cases but more importantly here demystified linux for me and made me comfortable with it. Then windows pissed me off one last time and the rest is history.)
The fedora community in my experience has been very helpful, though that was reddit, so we shall see what the future holds.