> I would recommend you to just learn basic ffmpeg usage instead > but ffmpeg is fine for beginners

No, that's just nonsense for any guide targetting beginners, it's not fine, it's too error-prone and complicated and requires entering the whole unfriendly land of the cli!

> If you must use a GUI

Of course you must! It's much better to provide beginners with your presets in Handbrake that avoid the footguns you mention (or teach them how to avoid them on their own) rather than ask them to descend into the dark pit of ffmpeg "basics"

> Before you start complaining about how complicated ffmpeg is and how arcane its syntax is, do yourself a favor and read the start of its documentation. It turns out that reading the (f.) manual actually helps a lot!

It turns out that wrapping the bad UI in a simpler typed GUI interface wastes less of the collective time than asking everyone to read dozens of pages of documentation!