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I expect every game I play or run to have differences from every other. I find it worth my while to read the rules before playing. I find it worth my while to read them thoroughly before running. Occasionally some writer will come up with a way of looking at things I haven't previously...

I agree. Every tool. Let's make them all better.

It must be nice to be so familiar with a game you haven't run before.

If it had started with Running the Game, how much would you have skipped? I've been playing D&D since 1983.

How would one know the book is mostly "advice that they don't need" without reading it? Before I ever ran 5e I read the DMG primarily because I was expecting it to be helpful. I was of course gravely disappointed.

I don't see a conflict between "experience helps" and "the manual should be better at teaching new DMs." At least give the new folks enough information that they make their own mistakes instead of repeating ours out of ignorance.

But it probably helps.

Because I was dumb I thought you were talking about a game instead of a sourcebook. Maybe "thought."

I'm sorry to be this guy but VRGtR? EDIT: Wait wait wait that's the Ravenloft setting book isn't it? I apologize for the dumb.

The 1e DMG has several examples of play but they aren't much like any of the play I remember. It's possible that examples of play are not the best way to teach play. This would include watching streamed play. The 1e DMG has several strongly-worded passages explicitly telling the DM to run...

I am reasonably confident I have laid eyes on just about every page of just about every gaming book I own. I admit I am not typical. The 5e DMG is possibly the least useful book of its type that I own. "Easier" will of course vary by person. Some people will prefer to learn from the published...

No. We are not the target market. It does seem reasonable though to expect a book called the Dungeon Master's Guide to be useful to someone new to DMing. I'm not sure how useful the current version would be to someone who'd been playing.

Yes. Different people will learn differently. Why do so many experienced DMs not read the DMG?

I agree there are ways in which the 5e DMG is worlds better than the 1e. It is not better at helping new DMs figure out how to DM. The fact there is maybe something helpful in the Starter and/or Beginner Sets does not change that.

The OP throws a bunch of things from the DMG at the wall with presumption people don't know those things are in the DMG because people don't read the DMG. How can a book that people don't read be useful? Why don't people read it?

I figured it out by slogging my way through the Book of Gygax and by playing first. It seems reasonable to want the game to have improved by this measure over the intervening forty years.

The current DMG manages to be useless to both experienced DMs and new ones. Fixing both of those seems like a reasonable thing to want. I did not find DMing to be all that difficult to pick up either but I played with some very good DMs and some very bad ones. I had a spread of things to look...

I would suggest to you that there are people who want to DM who do not want to run published adventures. Some of those people are almost certainly new to D&D or to the hobby in general. I think it would be better if the DMG were actually helpful to those people.

I know of people getting through Lost Mines of Phandelver in one long session. I know of people TPKing less than an hour in. I do not believe someone running it once is ready to make up their own campaign. They might be ready to run another published adventure. WotC would likely prefer they do that.

I think someone picking up the 5e DMG after running Lost Mines of Phandelver one time is as likely to be lost as someone picking it up having never run at all. The ideal would be neither being lost.