Another idea: Integrate torrent download of bootstrap.dat into bitcoind. Normal user (especially a beginner) won't learn how to download bootstrap separately and import it into bitcoind; he simply give up the synchronization once he realize it takes too much time. From my experience downloading the bootstrap significantly improves catching the blockchain, which may attract some more users to run bitcoind.

Not sure about C++, but simple torrent client in python is like 30 lines of code (using libtorrent).