I agree with you, Robin. I don't believe the formal grammar belongs in the printed book, or at least not _this_ printed book. It might be fine as a separately printed appendix. I, for one, have gotten along fine without it, never really gave it more than a glance, and my eyes glaze over whenever other people start referencing it on the email list. It's not that I don't understand formal grammars. I do have a CompSci degree. But I believe that chapter is only of interest to those people who are going to be programming in it, with it, or about it (e.g. camxes, jbofi'e, and cakyrespa)
It's no different in my business. For example, there are user manuals for printers, but I usually need something deeper, the prorammer's manual, because I need to learn how the down-and-dirty nitty-gritty works in order to get them to work with our applications. 99.99% of the public doesn't need that. Same with lojban. I didn't (And don't) need that chapter to speak lojban, nor does anyone else (Except, apparently, lojbab?). Dump it, and make it available on request.
--gejyspa, jumping out of my 3-month email backlog just for you, camgusmis <3