The 8-bit floating point is even easier to understand, since you can list them all in a single page, and even visualize the entire addition and multiplication tables.
(Also, the real "waste" is only on the multiple NaN values, since the zeros always "waste" only a single value for the "negative zero", and the infinities always "waste" only two values; AFAIK, both negative zero and the infinities are necessary for stability of some calculations.)