You are right, there is nothing new about this guide, however it's existence has a deep impact on the world of SEO.
First off, it says nothing about links, because Google is (and should, i guess) trying to keep links sacred...
However, this means two things:
One: Google now officially recognizes SEO, and not only that, but CONFIRMS what seo experts have worked hard to determine, i.e. URL structure, title tags, header tags, relevancy are all critical in allowing correct spidering/indexing.
Two: It now gives official credance to SEO's who explain their methods. Before this, there was no way of knowing if an seo was speaking truth or fallacy, and if you worked as an in house SEO for a large company, sometimes this barrier is the hardest to break (i.e. decision makers will not focus on seo when determining a project, and much work must be done after the fact to optimize). Now there is an official document by Google explaining the basics of seo, not just a bunch of internet guys with their websites doing who knows what. This could be an incredible help to those inhouse seos without cooperative decision makers.

So no, this document will not teach you anything new, but it has its own importance on the world of seo, and will be the birth of more documents like this one... I'm calling it now, this will not be the last SEO document google releases.