The XML part is definitely challenging for beginners. It's the same with Extended Events and a number of other systems introduced in R2/2012. I don't think it's that hard, but it's certainly off-putting. A little work to return a table of some sort would seem to me, to be a good direction for the SQL Server team.

In terms of explaining this as similar to linked servers, I think it's much more reliable and stronger. Linked Servers suffer from maintaining a connection and being able to reliably ensure that you can query through the LS. A queue works differently, and it provides guaranteed delivery, once the connectivity is up. This means it can work in disconnected scenarios.

It's really an architectural re-thinking of how you build an application.