Agreed. At first, it reads like something interesting is coming, like "where are we in the uncanny valley and here's the latest on getting out the other side." But then it turns into a very basic description (not even a tutorial) of basic 3D modeling and rendering. Then comes the ad.
One of the more useful developments in photorealistic rendering in recent years is the "Principled BSDF" shader.[1] This brings together most of the shader features you need for photorealism into one convenient package. Disney/Pixar came up with this to get their workflow organized, and now it's a semi-standard. Blender and Unreal Engine now support it.
If you want to read up on photorealistic rendering techniques, read stuff from the last 3 years. It's getting easier.
[1] https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/node...