Would have liked to see some of the formulas, such as for weapon damage and material density, but I understand that this is a 'getting started' guide. I wish I had had this before instead of having to trudge through the wiki.
Actually, no one except Toady knows what the real formulas used in the game are. With the help of raw modding, arena testing, and a dose of real life knowledge, we can make and test hypotheses like: the velocity of a weapon type increases its damage, or: the density of a metal improves its performance for blunt weapons. But you won't see a formula anywhere like: blunt weapon damage = velocity^2 * density * ... etc. All we have are broad assumptions based on ingame performance.
Then again maybe I'm being pedantic and you didn't mean actual formulas, you just wanted to see statements like "metal density improves blunt weapons, and here are the weapon metals in order of density .." - in which case I agree, it would've been nice to see that kind of information buried in an appendix somewhere.
That being said, I have the hard copy and think it's awesome. It's worth it imo just to have as a decoration/conversation starter, something physical to point friends towards, not to mention for the information contained within (even as a longtime player, I learned one or two things skimming through it, particularly regarding newer content that I haven't played with as much).