I am not sure what PG could do in regard to making USB audio easier for newbies.
I am far from a newbie and I still have terrible issues on my windows machine (on my iPad USB audio works wonderfully, although it's very opaque to the user).

I have my Music Laptop set up so my DAW always plays through my USB soundcard while the Windows audio goes through the headphone jack and then into a little mixer I have (where I plug and unplug audio output from microphones, piano, and other hardware devices. When using them in the DAW, I just plug them into the USB card as needed). That lets me listen and record in my DAW but also allows me to fire up YouTube if I need to check on something.

The problem is that Windows 10 audio is diabolical. My Mac is very old, so I no longer use it for music production (or anything else, really), but compared to windows it's a piece of cake.

The problem is that Windows USB audio is just complicated, unreliable and confusing. There is not much that PG could do about it because every user's setup is different.
In my case, I have a collection of sound cards bought pretty much every time Windows got a new version and the manufacturer "forgot" to write decent drivers for their product.
Funny enough, when I finally connected my iPad pro 2021, every USB soundcard, except for the very first one I bought in the late 90s, worked flawlessly. They were recognized, audio quality excellent and so on.
On my windows machine (both laptop and desktop windows 10 with specs high enough to make it a Supercomputer not too long ago) I often get nothing, no sound until I turn off the laptop and unplug/plug. I change nothing, but it's like my USB card isn't there at all.

And don't get me started with ASIO and the Windows proprietary drivers. I have a Behringer card that occasionally lets me use its own ASIO drivers, but more often than not I am forced to use ASIO4ALL instead. No one knows why.

The other card, a Lexicon, doesn't even have a name anymore in the control panel and shows up only as "USB device". It works, but it's temperamental.

I often wonder what people like my wife or my mother would do if they wanted to just fire up a DAW and make some simple music. More often than not, I have a song idea in mind, I turn on my laptop, and by the time I get everything working, my song has turned into a poor version of "Just the two of us" or Bowie's "Is there life on Mars". Because so much time has passed I barely remember the progression, so my mind substitutes my work of genius (right!) with something more familiar.

This has been such an issue that I have taken to recording my ideas on my iPad now, so I have no more excuses and I have to face the reality that I am a talentless hack.
Until the iPad came along, I could fool myself into thinking I was a genius because my constant struggle with my hardware/software made me forget so many tunes I composed.

As far as the UI design of Realband, I agree. We are used to band in a Box, it's not pretty, but we do what we need to do with it and accept it, but Realband truly is butt ugly compared to the competition.

What I would do if I were in charge, I would design a more elegant, more minimalistic interface and give the user an option to load the "classic" style if they wish. I bet it would be taken more seriously (especially by me)

Realband is a clear case that UI/UX is important. We are creative people and the tools we use for our creativity are important.

For instance, I like the taste of Coca Cola, but I cannot drink it out of a plastic bottle. Beside any issue with the plastic "flavoring" the drink and the use of corn syrup, it's really a matter that, on hot days I'd stop at my local convenience store, open the big, red refrigerator, take a coke bottle, open it (not twist it) and drink it's precious nectar. It was an experience I still cherish to this day and probably half the reason I drink Coke at all.

Before I went on a diet, I gladly spent triple the price of a Coke for the Mexican glass bottle experience. Now that I have switched to Coke Zero, I have to buy the aluminum can version, as I still can't drink out of the plastic bottle. It's just not the same. Even if I pour both in a glass eventually (neither are appealing to drink from) I *know* that it came from a cheap, polluting, miserable, plastic bottle, and it ruins the experience.

You may ask, what's the relation between Coke and a DAW's UI?
It's the whole experience. Little details often affect our perception at a subliminal level. In some cases, they affect us at a higher level and some of us just cannot use a DAW with an interface right out of the 90s.

I hope they will redesign the layout, but the USB audio problem is going to remain until Windows finally gets their S**t together and creates a standard that won't take a PhD to use.