The best thing (IMO) about this guide is that it does not start with a gazillion lines of Elisp code to add to .emacs.d/init.el. I think people should be allowed to experience plain vanilla Emacs and decide for themselves what they want to change. If we just tell them "oh, you definitely want these modes enabled and these settings to these values", I feel they are somehow robbed of the best part of Emacs, namely figuring out what you want your own personal editing experience to be.