I hate the idea of a launcher because steam already does that. You can't get easier updating than just letting steam do it when updates are available. That's my gripe with games like warthunder and everything that launches through uplay etc or some other face between steam and the actual game.
"Oh let's play this" *launcher opens* "Oh yea that's right I haven't played in a while and now here are some gigabytes worth of updates"

Forum banners mirrored or some other advertising of the wider community in the game client could be good though. Maybe the menu screen or something but I'm not a fan of the launcher idea.

Also regarding the barrier to entry in regards to items and stuff for new players I actually have something in the works for that.