> The additional burden of it using a separate regular alphabet is negligible in comparison.
While trying to learn Thai and Arabic at varying points years ago, I was frustrated to find that so many of the books out there ignore the native alphabet/script and instead rely on various romanization or transliteration schemes. In many cases I found these schemes, particularly the IPA [1], just as hard or harder to learn than the native script and pronunciation.
I understand that IPA has it's place, particularly in academic circles and/or if there is no native speaker around to model for proper pronunciation, but if you're giving me an audio CD too, what's the point of the intermediary?