Probably not as bad as you say. Most people don't read most of the rule books anyway. And they're going to page forward to character generation. I agree. They shouldn't have to. And given the book I would likely give up before I found character generation. But that's me.

I think the real unanswered question is who's going to play this game? There's no established fandom or compelling feature set.

That's a mystery to me too.

In the '70s and '80s there would have been a HUGE fandom based on the popularity of the TTA books. Those books were DYNAMITE and probably helped set the feel of SF gaming despite never being directly used. (You can see a lot of TTA look and feel in Traveller...)

By 2006 there was no demand for this book and, as their attempt to rejuvenate the series would have shown them, there was no way to make demand. Anybody who wanted to game in the TTA universe was already doing so with other games--a task rendered simple by virtue of the fact that the books were almost ruthlessly focused on SPACESHIPS and installations, not people. You could fit almost any game system and it would work. Add in the terrible editing on the new book, plus the terrible information design of the game itself, and, well, there's a reason why this is a fringe game.

And believe me, it is as bad as I say. Stuff players need to make characters and actually play is mixed in with setting information and fluff in ways that makes it difficult to find. And, indeed, so difficult to find that even if you do use the ToC to get to character generation, you'll still need information in the info dumps to proceed ... with no cross-referencing nor easy stand-out way to spot it.

I see.

I've only done SF gaming a couple of times but I enjoyed playing a computer geek.

In SF games I tend to play badass types. Gunners. Infantry. Rocket riders (fighter pilots). That kind of thing.