I'd say that a bunch of responses to a simple question will push a newbie (a proper one) to study the docs and see the difference between the proposed solutions. While doing that, he/she of course will learn a bunch of other stuff. If there was a problem/mistake in the answer, then seeing it corrected by the OP author fullfills the answer.

Being just few month out of the newbie army myself it's also nice for me to see several answers to simple questions by more experienced monks. This keeps my mind in shape and points out to me other ways to solve simple problems which I didn't yet think about. Emptying of a hash is a good example here. :)

Update: fixed a stupid typing mistake. :)