As a Mentor, I am totally agree with you. I am sorry you did not see a Mentor on the OI you were on. When I am approached by new residents with those same problems I always tell them to disregard the HUD and just try each task at the 4 different parts of the Island. Whats worse are the many non-English speaking new residents who cannot be helped when same lanquage speaking Mentors cannot be found.
Several months ago, Linden Labs rolled out an impressive new set of Orientation Islands, Mentors were asked to seed the Islands and observe the user experience. Overall the UI of the Islands were easy to navigate and very educational. Avatars were forced to follow a set route and at the end were given the choice of staying in a sandbox to learn building skills or leave to go to the Mainland.
Sadly, those Islands were wiped.
As with the questionably designed Dazzle Viewer, Linden Labs does not seem to pay attention to the comments and critics of the users. Isn't the Patient and Customer always right?