Oh, I definitely agree. Back when I taught myself the general principles I PURCHASED the books and borrowed the programs. Good thing too because there's no way that I could've justified paying several thousand for 3DS Max and Cinema 4D with the little that I did with it back then. 

I'm so happy, now, ten years later that a lot of this stuff is freeware. This way I can find out what I can and can't work with.

I had a book  that was written especially for the first or second release of Blender but even with the book it was a bit of a struggle back then. I think Blender is freeware for people who REALLY know what they're doing and have had a lot of experience in a lot of different modelers.