njkayaker

You are probably beyond what the manual can really help you with (you might still pick up some extra info). Carefully reading the stuff that I've spent hours writing might be more useful.

Pressing "Go" loads and processes the course for navigation. That includes calculating a route (if you have "Turn Guidance On"). Since that can take a while (for long routes), it's something you want to be able to do before you actually start riding. You can also review the route that it calculated (and some other stuff) before you actually ride (or ever ride the route).

You could argue that "Go" is a bad choice ("Ride" on the newer units doesn't seem better to me) but making that argument doesn't seem useful at all.

If you aren't at the start, what should the device do?

Anyway, you don't need to "Navigate to the start" if you are basically at the start. "Navigate to the start" might be useful if you are some distance from the start and need help to get there. Otherwise, it's very easy not to be bothered by it.

You need to press the start buttom. I set the device to remind me: "Menu->wrench->Bike Settings->Start Notice", then "Once" or "Repeat".

The device needs some recorded data to be able do do some aspects of navigation.

You don't need to use navigation. You might want average-speed/distance/elapsed-time without wanting to navigate. You need to have the device record data for that information.

You need to press "Go" to navigate. You also need to subsequently press "start" to navigate too.

It never occurred to me that this could bes a big hurdle for people.

Using the device once or twice should be enough for people deal with it.