...but you can’t convey the dist, build, meta, make, synopsis, spelling, OS, tests, author tests, env, CI, repos, deps, manifest, versioning, dev versioning, et cetera to someone who doesn’t even know what those things are; and if you automate it, it’s a kind of cargo-culting.

This is certainly true. But people who don't know what those things are wouldn't be the target audience for the tutorial I have in mind. I think dzil needs a tutorial which is written for people who don't know what Dist::Zilla is and how it can help them with these tasks if they emerge at all. I may well have missed something, but the documentation of Perl itself ends at perlnewmod and perlmodstyle, and this is the point where I'd love a tutorial to start off. The step by step guide in perlnewmod starts with "Start with module-starter or h2xs", and Perlmonks features How to make a CPAN Module Distribution with similar stuff. I'd like people to be enabled (neither pushed nor forced) to start with dzil new.

This is also a matter of personal preferences. I accept quite some cargo-culting when there's just a tiny chance of missing the point where the alternatives start to get cumbersome. On occasion, this pays off: The AutoPrereqs plugin alone saved me so much time that it was totally worth the migration from module-starter which I had used before. A tutorial as nysus started to write would have made my path easier.

Yeah, understanding should not be a prerequisite :) Not everybody wants to be a farmer/butcher/frycook/doctor/mechanic ...

I think a more interesting idea is code instead of tutorials

Create module-starter in terms of dzil, except simpler/smarter than both, a magic burger wrapper

make solid stubby stubs for users, with solid default, fill the pod/versioninfo from smart comments (Pod::Autopod? something perlobj-smarter ? Recap: The Future of Perl 5 ?) So all new users have to do is

$ newbeedzil Snacks::Ahoy
Hi
new bee
you've picked a good name, no stopwords, no cpan conflicts, you're on 
+your way 


Creating
Snacks-Ahoy/lib/Snacks/Ahoy.pm
edit this, its your code, doc comments,
follow the example you like, 
remember oo is optional

Creating
Snacks-Ahoy/Makefile.PL
edit  this to change author name, email, license, github

All other meta files are autogenerated from these two.


to test 
   newbeedzil test
to preview docs 
   newbeedzil docs
to release to cpan
....

enjoy the magic dzil burgers
[download]

The new author only gets one choice to choose, the module name (modules names)

You have essentially described the modus operandi of Dist::Milla and Minilla, which I already recommend to new module authors to get started quickly. But learning to use these (takes about as long as reading their pod) doesn't really help you learn to use Dist::Zilla when you want to dig deeper.

Is it really trully burgers? Then your direction is clear?

I dont think minilla is burgers, being tied heavily to git can't be the equivalent of module-starter

$ minil  new MyMinilTest
The "git" executable has not been found.
[download]

Yeah, thats baggage

But learning to use these (takes about as long as reading their pod) doesn't really help you learn to use Dist::Zilla when you want to dig deeper.

Then its not burgers.

Burgers would hook you through the convenience of module-starter. Let you use some magic without having to learn anything about it. But as soon as you want to learn it would hand hold you all the way to the frycook/butcher/farmer/doctor/mechanic