I completely agree, but only after a good read of Effective Go and honestly the language spec. The language spec is documented and completely, completely readable. I have no doubt it's a result of the simplicity driven by the simple/fast compiler. Just seeing the examples get you in the Go states of mind and prepare you for the standard library.

I do think that sometimes the more complex packages are aided by examples and I think the std lib could take on a few more examples. Fortunately, http://gobyexample.com someone is already doing that.