Given how readily good search and navigation exist, I'd much prefer GNU-style awk man pages to BSD-style awk man pages. 15 years ago I taught myself the AWK programming language using "man awk" on a Red Hat Linux box with no network connection. Had the manual been merely a listing of available switches, that wouldn't have been possible.

I'd actually prefer it if more languages provided man pages with detailed language as opposed to random assortments of HTML posing as documentation. Always liked perl precisely due to this.