I find Novarossi engines pretty easy to run and operate - including breaking them in. The needle settings out of the box are too rich. They almost always need to be leaned out to get the engine to idle and get it to run clean (and not 4-stroke) on the top end - oily fuel or not. I break in with 14% oil and drop 1% for each quart until I get to -1% where I stay. Not a single issue getting the engines running or tuning. Heck, I have 2 gallons on the stock OEM plug in my Legend 28-8RT.
Inexperience usually involves some struggle. The learning curve is steep without any prior knowledge.