Sticking to CodeIgniter practices vs. making things easier for new developers to pick up

[eluser]charlieD[/eluser]
Some of CodeIgniter's functionality is very useful; however sometimes I think the framework-specific ways of doing things would just make it harder for new developers (who perhaps aren't familiar with CodeIgniter) to pick up.

For example, there are a few 'helper' functions which just appear to be one line wrappers for a simple native PHP function, possibly with a tiny benefit.

In other situations, it's less clear whether using the framework would be beneficial or not.

For example, when adding a general function to deal with an array task, CodeIgniter's rules would say this would be added as a 'helper'. However, I personally would find it easier to follow if the function is wrapped in a 'Utils' class, e.g. $this->utils->doSomething(); rather than doSomething() makes it easier to follow and find the doSomething() method.

What is the best practice in situations like this? Is this a matter of personal preference or is it strongly recommended that you stick to the Framework at all times?