Many years ago a very young Genghis and several other then wannabee Engineers were sat in a tutorial with Professor Robin East (now allegedly retired, although I still see him at RAeS lectures occasionally) who was one of the driest lecturers and most clear and lucid tutorial supervisors I've ever known.
Prof. East asked us this very question, and we all gave various versions of Bernoulli, 2D, 3D, viscous, inviscid - you know the drill.
He heard us out, then said - "you're making it far too complicated",
"Look at it this way", he said. "An aeroplane travels forwards, whilst doing so it has a shape which continuously deflects air downward. Since it takes a force to do this, and every force has an equal and opposite reaction, you get lift".
If you use prof.East's basic premise, and establish that the rest are all simply means to predict how the lift behaves, it makes some kind of sense.
G