I too have ventured into the Frey that is Magento and have finally left very scar stricken!
It is the least intuitive platform I have used. It is also the heaviest and most sluggish. In terms of community, what community?? All I found was a bunch of arrogant guru's with a *tut *sigh attitude. It would appear that the higher the difficulty level, the higher the ego!
I have now moved to opencart which so far has been an absolute breath of fresh air. I have put down my gun and replaced it with a cigar and a mojito in celebration of this intuitive system, friendly community and great SEO results. Of course this is just my opinion. Thanks for the great article Ben.