I figured out everything I wrote out after about 20 minutes of researching, which doesn't seem like a lot of time when researching something one is considering putting money into. Also, the ICO had been happening for about a year, so it's not like people haven't had tons of time to figure out what's happening on their own.

It's also not like the way EOS is working during its launch hasn't been clearly stated, publicised and explained to everyone, including on the EOS official website.

They are trying something totally new, so...
To participate in something so new requires paying some attention, but not much.

I don't see that as a huge drawback. I'm also having a hard time identifying where people will lose any coins other than being totally stupid by falling prey to scams or thinking their ERC-20 placeholder coins are the real EOS coins when they're not (and then never claiming their real EOS coins).

Those blunders would fall into the category of being "totally stupid" in my book.

Other than that, for people with coins on the reputable and enormous exchanges currently allowing EOS trading, it seems all the technical aspects will be handled by those exchanges before they allow people to transfer any real EOS coins off those exchanges.

For those holding their EOS balance placeholders in ETH wallets, EOS has been publicising how the claiming of real EOS coins will work with those placeholders for a while now.

Of course that doesn't mean there arent still totally stupid people in the world unable, unwilling or too lazy to do a little reading before sinking their money into something (or too lazy to check into mandatory software update developments (after they've been around for months)).

Many others salute those people, because their lost coins from errors like you described above only decrease the overall coin supplies in the long run.

Try not to ever be one of those people.