I think this is a valid complaint. Sure, it looks "clean" and has some incredibly simplistic examples, but beyond that it's very much an alpha release.

Of course, once we get to the aforementioned 1.0 release with a stable API, things will get a lot better, either from the node guys or third-party guides.

This is happening.

Perhaps I came across too negatively. But, man, it takes some digging to find out how cool node.js is.

I think what you're saying is very subjective.

What they have is quite nowaday standard (and comparing to many older opensource projects: high above average) in the terms of design, clarity, quick examples showing the essence etc.

You know it always takes some conscious effort to discover if the technology is cool and useful or not - think like "teach yourself programming in 10 years". It's much better to provide useful essential examples and let people think what they want to than to say "hey we're new ubercool thing, join us or you're the looser lol". I for one am very happy to see Ryan Dahl seems more modest person than some of "celebrities" in the Ruby world for example (to be fair: ruby-talk list was always dominated by modest, hard-working people rather than celebrities). Productive community is the best advertisement and smart, experienced newcomer will quickly add 2+2 and see the value.

That's a good thing!

Why?