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There are several things on my mind:

Every community has its own way, written or not, to treat community members, especially new ones, and more especially if the new ones conduct below the (written or not) community's standard.
Each community consists of heterogenous people, even if they all agree and commit to the standard, not all of them applying it in the same manner. And even if they do, they do it for different reason, different purpose.
While I see some points in your post, we can't just generalize thing. At least, we need some accurate data to make sure that there's a real turnover on PM. But how do we judge from the data? That there's a significant number of monks don't return after knowing their first post in negative reps? How do they even know what it means? How do we know that's the reason not to come back?
I would really want to downvote some posts, for formatting reason, wording composition, or simply for bad content, but I just never do it, I never downvote any node, and somehow I feel a bit guilty about this because it's kind of letting bad things going. But I felt it more constructive if I could say something to let them know what's wrong with their posts, either in replies (and trying to provide solution if I was able to) or by /msg's.
I believe in maturity, and I see the Internet as the wild world, and maturity is one of things you need in the wild world. So I tend to think that everyone is mature enough, or at least, prepares to be mature, while some people might tend to think otherwise. So I expect that whenever a user gets negative reputation and knows what it means, s/he takes time to think about what's going on, then finds some answers.
I believe that the monastery is mature enough to cherish the unfortunates, if they're willing to find. I didn't take a long time to make sure that node reputation and XP are just part of the game. It's fun, if you take it so. But it could be pain, also if you take it so. When monks realize not to take XP seriously, aside from converting it as a feedback tool, I believe they will develop something good.
I know, there is still another problem such personal downvoting, and to the lesser, personal upvoting. But I think that what I say above and below, will apply the same.
Say, judging from the statistic, we do incurre some significant turnover, what do we really need for the community, quantity or quality? I am not trying to say I have some quality as monk here, and as a Perl user (or, you may say programmer/developer). But we all want to improve. Downvoting a node, (presumely, with good/right reasons), and/or giving feedback in form of ("hard") ciritism, are just some ways to let other people to improve.
I can take your words that we learn a lot from answering questions. I also experience the same because it forces me to learn more. I reread references to make sure I say the right thing (even if I knew that already), and I test code (well, I have to admint sometimes I miss it and let things embarrassing over my face) before posting. So to rephrase your words in another way: how do you call yourself expert without beginner? Or, without being beginner initially, in case some insist ;-)
A community such as PerlMonks, eventually finds its way to develop some culture to also educate its members. New users are kept to be informed the Right Way to do the Good Things. If they can take it, who is to blame? The "senior" monks who say the words? The /Perl(Monks)?/ newbies? Eventhough, ignorance people keep coming and coming to post silly questions.

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