So, am I the only one who thinks new users shouldn't be expected to read the sequences before participating? There are works of brilliance there but there are also posts that are far from required reading.
You are far from the only such user - I agree with the edits you made to remove this propositional content from the FAQ.
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.