You do have a point - that's not too bad, but to my eyes it's still more arcane than Python and Ruby (spoken as someone who has written less than 30 shell scripts in my life).
I still contend that Ruby and Python are far more accessible than shell scripting, because they are very popular, especially Python, cross-platform, and less arcane.
For my own curiosity I did the simplest Python version I could think of to see how it would compare:
import os
import random
import sys
os.system("clear")
print "Hello there. I'm a computer. What's your name?"
G = raw_input()
print "Hello " + G + ". You are welcome to computer land."
while True:
print ""
print "What would you like to do today?"
print "1) Say something random"
print "2) Make a maze"
print "3) Exit"
print "Enter your selection"
S = raw_input()
if S == "1":
F = open("/usr/share/dict/words").readlines()
W = random.choice(F)
os.system("say {}".format(W))
elif S == "2":
for i in range(1, 3000):
if random.random()>0.5:
sys.stdout.write("/")
else:
sys.stdout.write("\\")
elif S == "3":
print "Bye."
exit()
else:
print "Try again."
It looks like a tossup to me, all 3 versions have their own share of magic that will confuse the beginner. I say this as someone who reads and writes a lot more python than bash daily.
I still contend that Ruby and Python are far more accessible than shell scripting, because they are very popular, especially Python, cross-platform, and less arcane.