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I am very happy that sign languages are getting more attention in 2E, but the implementation seems half-way and unrealistic. As I'll show below, it could easily go all the way without adding to the page count. [Though it does slightly add to the complexity.]
Sign languages are very different from written languages. Someone who learns ASL can't read English without separate training. The syntax, morphology, etc. are all different.
Yet the Rulebook states:
[In the case where your character uses sign language to communicate instead of spoken language], your character can communicate using the sign languages associated with the languages she selects, as well as being able to read and write the written forms of those languages.
I understand why there would be distinct sign languages for each spoken language, but couldn't we decouple the signing and the reading/writing? It would be very simple.
The same sentence could read something like this:
[In the case where your character uses sign language to communicate instead of spoken language], your character can communicate using the sign language associate with the languages she selects, as well as being able to read and write the written forms of as many languages as she can sign.
Most of the time players would choose the same languages, but this would give them the flexibility they have in real life. This type of situation isn't unheard of in real life (e.g. deaf scholars who can read/write fluently in multiple languages they can't sign in), but almost never happens with non-deaf people (e.g. I've never heard of a non-deaf person who can write fluently in a language but can't speak a lick of it, even with "dead languages" such as Latin).
The same could be done with the lip reading feat. For example, you could have a group of human slaves who had their tongues cut out and grew up signing Common behind the backs of their Orc captures. They can read and lip read Orc, but they can't speak Orc nor speak, write, or read Common.
In the end however, I am not deaf, so more than anything it would be good to hear from Paizo about the feedback that they have gotten from the deaf community on their implementation of sign language. I've got my opinion, but they are kinda secondary. I'd love to hear what the deaf community thinks.