Oh, I don't know. Seems to me that the wiki it's a *better* landing page for newbies; it does a better job of leading them by the hand without making them scroll or click.
I disagree. People still have an expectation that a 'front page' has some sort of introductory component to it. And even users expect to need to go to a front page, I think they would almost be caught off guard to be thrown straight into a Wiki. (You almost need the motivator of 'trouble running Wine? go here!'). And I don't like the notion that users somehow get to trump all other potential uses of the web page.
If it directs users to information well, it's not aesthetics, it's usability.
The idea is to use the front page to quickly handle the most frequent questions (how to get it, where's the doc), and if that's not what they're after, to direct them to a page based on their 'role' (e.g. user or developer).
But this I do agree with.
Cheers,
Jeremy