Can't say I think much of the both-sides-ist take
@FrogReaver. It's hard to strawman an argument that suggests adding in a handful of examples of what would reasonably be "progress with a setback" is unnecessary/bad/excessive because twelve-year-olds can read a dictionary -
which is in fact an actual argument that has been put forth in this thread.
Not to mention that despite bemoaning strawmen, we're treated to...
One doesn't get much more straw-filled than that. If that
wasn't meant to be sarcasm, I for one would appreciate a direct quote of someone saying examples need to be so abundant.
I think we can take it as fact that whether or not WotC intends for the DMG to be a teaching tool (and they do not at present; well and good), new DMs and experienced DMs alike are going to use it (
edit to add - in fact, are
meant to use it, else it wouldn't be a
core book). That means that it ought to be able to cater to the needs of both categories of DM. What's more, DMs don't all have the same gameplay preferences or preferences with respect to running a game. The DMG ought also to be able to cater to the needs of multiple types of DM.
For my part, I'm assuming the DMG is, or at least
ought to be, intended to function as a reference manual. To my mind the implications are as follows:
(1) There is no expectation that anyone will read the whole thing cover-to-cover or be obliged to memorise all its contents. (It's a reference manual, you refer to it at need.)
(2) It ought to be structured such that the most important and mission-critical tasks of being a DM (running a game session) are placed first, with less mission-critical tasks placed later. (I would go so far as to also say that mission-critical tasks should also be given a more comprehensive treatment.)
(3) It ought to be written and structured with a view to wider publishing industry standards for reference manuals, such as they are. Certainly if anyone can afford to have consultants or editors familiar with such things brought on board, it's WotC. I'm not aware of there being any compelling reason to think that being a Dungeon Master is such a unique and idiosyncratic thing to do that its primary reference manual wouldn't benefit from more closely resembling reference manuals for other hobbies.
If page count is a concern, I'm happy to point out that there is a 25-page chapter on various planes of existence that could easily be condensed (down to a few pages describing some alternate cosmologies and... wait for it... two or three examples of individual planes), and I am quite confident in saying that a more fulsome editing of the DMG would free up space to enable it to do a better job of being a more-or-less-one-stop reference for DMs.