Well, I'm still a relative noob, I only started playing since 3.2 and I'll give you my tank experiences when I first started playing.
I pretty much fell in love with tanks from start. I liked playing on tanks maps more than infantry maps, cose I always got ownd on infantry.
I was amazed by the realistic interior detail, realistic movement and guns and sights.
When I saw you actually had to aim high on long shots, I was like "Holy crap, that's awesome!"
From reading the manual and from asking players, I learned how to angle the tank. And from playing as the gunner I realized you couldn't shoot on the move as well, so when I drove I remembered to stay still for a shot.
With all the influx of people coming in there's gonna be those that'll like tanks(like me) and those that won't. The ones that do will learn how to use them pretty fast. The ones that dont will be the ones f%@ing around and tking cose they think tanks are boring and they wanna run around with their f%$#@ing ppshs and play Berlin, even thet won't know what Berlin was.
Sometimes you have to be patient and tell ppl what to do, instead of saying "OMFG you n00b, get teh f
**k outta my tank!!11".
Sasquatch's post is great, I never thought about that.