I like what Isopod did, linking them directly to a instance.
The only way to catch the average joe is to hold their hand and get them to content as quickly as possible. While linking them to the largest instances may not be the healthiest for decentralization, it's going to give newcomers the best experience.
A lot of redditors, I'd even say the majority now-a-days, use the app. While a lot of the Lemmy apps are great. I wish there was one that guided you through the entire signup process.
It's slightly cleaner than the default UI. I'm not a huge fan of the style. Photon is amazing though, I hope it gets adopted as the default UI eventually. Just a few things to iron out and it'd be the perfect recommendation. Check out phtn.app, I've customized it some on lemmyusa.com as well.