Sword of Spirit
Legend
Well I finally picked up a copy and while this is a good generic monster book, it's not so good as a FR product. I wish they would have given more lore on the monsters with regards to how they interact with Faerun. I mean if you are going to call this a "Volo's Guide", then I expect write ups on their connection to the Realms.
The funny thing is that your con is my pro on this. Although they probably could have made it work for both of us just by including brief sidebars describing where they fit in the Realms.
For many of the more common monsters, other FR setting products (whether SCAG or previous editions) tell you what lives in various locations.
In the case of SCAG, they've essentially already done this for the edition, so I'm not sure it would be a good idea to take out 15 monsters to make room for sidebars for people who want to play FR without the SCAG.
For the more rare and obscure monsters...well those are the kind you usually just add to an adventure or stick on a "special" line in a random encounter, so unless they have been specifically and uniquely located somewhere in the Realms in the past, I'm not sure if it would be needed.