All the time. My usage is a mixture of cat, tail, less, emacs , depending on the situation. I think cat comes very naturally for any *nix user, as it's a useful building block when constructing shell pipes.
Probably not... but I figured that was the easiest way to ensure those unfamiliar with the commandline wouldn't wind up in the middle of a 'less' pager and not know how to get out. ;)
Those who are unfamiliar with the command line ought not be pasting commands from a blog into their terminal emulator without understanding what they are doing.