Howdy, aforementioned co-author here.
I understand concerns about sock puppetry. That said there is I think sufficient information about Avlis fluff out there (at least) to give some idea of the setting itself, and let people make a decision on whether or not they want to check out the setting book. We have setting wikis for both incarnations of PW Avlis. I stand by both Josh and my work on the setting as a whole, and I also think there's plenty of it available for free for people to make a judgment.
As for the crunchy bits, I hope that we can get some more concrete reviews from the samples given out by Josh.
I appreciate that people are willing to take the time to chime in on this discussion at all.
-N.A.