Nautilus used to have a system like that with Basic/Intermediate/Advanced options, patterned after the rating system used on ski slopes (ie: Advanced = Black Diamond).
IIRC, the arguments against it were:
There's always some option the gets put in advanced that some basic or intermediate user will be looking for but now they have to look in 3 different places for it.
Some people don't like being thought of as "basic" users even when they really are and will turn on the advanced option so they don't fee; short-changed on available features.
Advanced ends up being a huge KDEesque mess anyways.
Whether any of this was backed up by actual user testing I don't recall.
One could probably dig up the arguments on the GNOME mailing lists if desired.