Last night I made a statement that I thought the ability to have and create aliases was the worst feature in PowerShell. That may seem like a harsh statement and one of the odder things to pick on but my reasoning is quite simple.
They put people off learning PowerShell.
I have done a number of demonstrations and talks on using and learning PowerShell. In all of them I have used a PowerShell script to read the commands from a text file and step through them. I have always used the full version of the name – as I believe the it aids understanding. I have had a number of comments along the lines of "ahh Now I understand" and when you probe into the statement find that they had seen one liners that just appeared to consist of random letters and symbols.
Those of us who have been using PowerShell for any length of time are the ones who really set the tone for the community in terms of whether it is perceived as an open community that welcomes new comers or as a closed community that does not want to let new people in. In my opinion the over use of aliases is one of the things that will make us seem to be in the later category.
Richard Siddaway's Blog 