There isn't necessarily any correlation between the newbie status of the questioner and the complexity (or lack thereof) of the question asked. This is particularly true of questions in niche sub-domains of programming such as image processing or scientific computing. In these niche areas, it is relatively common to see newbie Stack Overflow users asking PhD-level questions (often poorly worded in broken English).
The questions are typically not duplicates and the knowledge is valuable precisely because the expertise required to answer the question is rare, yet the reputation system does a poor job of rewarding the few experts who take the time to answer them for a couple of reasons: A) The questioner rarely bothers to give the answerer credit by marking the question as answered. B) The system does not allow a third party to mark the question as answered when the originator fails to do so. C) The people who answer these niche questions often only answer questions in their specific area of expertise -- they don't answer many of the more mundane programming questions that require little knowledge or effort to answer. Thus, despite the valuable expertise they've demonstrated, the reputation system fails to award these individuals with credit relative to the actual value of the information they dispense.
The questions are typically not duplicates and the knowledge is valuable precisely because the expertise required to answer the question is rare, yet the reputation system does a poor job of rewarding the few experts who take the time to answer them for a couple of reasons: A) The questioner rarely bothers to give the answerer credit by marking the question as answered. B) The system does not allow a third party to mark the question as answered when the originator fails to do so. C) The people who answer these niche questions often only answer questions in their specific area of expertise -- they don't answer many of the more mundane programming questions that require little knowledge or effort to answer. Thus, despite the valuable expertise they've demonstrated, the reputation system fails to award these individuals with credit relative to the actual value of the information they dispense.