This article may have a point about poor state of basic computer education in US, but its just blindly guesses the reasons on the topic of why so many hackers are from ex-USSR countries. A pretty good level of CS doesn't help here much - take a look at Europe, for instance.
The secret ingredient is a culture of cheating. Its absolutely fine to cheat on any level of exam (unless you get caught, obviously). This makes students think about the weak points of any system, gives them a chance to train their skills etc. The side effect of this culture is much higher level of corruption and financial crimes
GNOME has solved in a radical way by simplifying menus, so you need neither search nor frequent mouse/keyboard navigation.
Honestly 'even Apple does it' is a poor argument. If global menu would be a really good and generally accepted idea we'd see it implemented in GNOME and KDE (via extensions at least).