I don't get why they are encouraging non-devs to murk around in their template code.

Wordpress team has always come back with "this functionality can be created with a plugin". Then they add this b.s. to the core. Yet we cant select what pages a widget is published on without a plugin. WTF?!?!?!!?!?

If you cant use FTP and a code editor you have no business changing anything in your code.