I had just posted this on the same topic in the simultaneous and somewhat overlapping discussion on the Proposed New Features thread.
I agree that new readers will come in with different interests and areas of expertise, and strongly suggesting that all of them read all of the sequences before posting (or even reading!) Less Wrong doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, if we're really trying to grow the community. It seems like a good idea to edit the FAQ in the way you suggested. I also suggested thread discussions for answering questions and directing new readers to reading that would be particularly useful to them; at least, I would suggest that if it turns out people here are generally willing to contribute to that sort of thread.
Less Wrong is extremely intimidating to newcomers and as pointed out by Academian something that would help is a document in FAQ form intended for newcomers. Later we can decide how to best deliver that document to new Less Wrongers, but for now we can edit the existing (narrow) FAQ to make the site less scary and the standards more evident.
Go ahead and make bold edits to the FAQ wiki page or use this post to discuss possible FAQs and answers in agonizing detail.