For a lot of people, just getting them in shoes where they are actually fitting vaguely well enough is a challenge - I think it's easy for people who have been climbing a while to forget how adapted their feet are to being in climbing shoes, and that a lot (most?) first time shoe-buyers wouldn't be able to deal with a properly downturned shoe.
[/quote]
Experiences here are also very biased towards those who took up performance climbing (my bias is the opposite, from 15 years in a student club helping new climbers). Many beginners stop after a while and plenty just bumble around (the average lead grade on UKC forums is HS). The range of shoes is also a problem... not many shops hold a really good range so the best fit in the shop might not be anything like the best fit available. The biggest problem in mis-selling is the undersizing to new climbers (as, they are told, thats what all climbers do) with a result that they can only wear the shoes for a few minutes at a time... this is potentially reallly damaging to their feet.