I agree, that in some circumstances it's needlessly difficult for a new user to be able to contact and communicate with other users. We have this weird situation where a user can create a chat account and log in, but only read, and I've seen conversations carried on where the OP talks in comments which he then deletes, and others reply in Chat, creating a disjointed approach that encourages the uses to use the bad habits (extended discussions in comments) that we try to avoid.
20 isn't a particularly difficult target to hit, but when it's your first question it seems massively complex to have to have these things explained when we don't have a way for them to participate in a 2 way chat.
Not sure how to fix it, I imagine that the points/privileges system is cast on stone for all SE sites, and we can't unilaterally change it for AD, but perhaps it could be considered for change site wide.
Here's an example of an user answering via comments:
