This made me think, although not exactly what James is expecting but
it might be possible to package a minimal Emacs distribution with the
latest stable org-mode included as an alternate download. It could
supply some skeleton files which would be used as default
customisations and extended as the user grows in lisp proficiency.
Pretty much the same as `emacs -Q -l minimal-org.el'. This could be
offered as a download on the home page for non-techie users.