I don't think the cooldown prevents or restricts much for new or old players, really. One of the only things it prevents are spamming messages from player, and keeping the chat clean. Most player chat among their faction or alliance chat, or are Roleplaying. On the side of a new player, if someone were to say "Hello" there are an abundance of people to greet them back, the conversation continuing as people go back and forth, and people will comment on the last thing sent in the General chat.

There is a chat called 'RP-OOC' and Roleplayers use it to find the happening ons of Regalia, or promote RP families, etc. Most Roleplayers don't even have General chat open, as the channel can become flooded and their RP can be filtered out. PvP'ers even have their own PvP chat to find raids and challenge people, etc.

RP'ers and PvP'ers alike use General chat to converse about whatever it is at the given moment. I don't see any shyness from either side. Now there are down times every single day, something that obviously no one can control, and General chat can become quiet, but even then I have seen new players say a "Hello" and at least one person says it back.

 

In the end, I don't think a cooldown is needed or necessary. It's not preventing or holding back conversation, and when it is being used, conversation usually flow very easy, even with the 60 second cooldown. This is just my opinion, playing on the server.