Read Gerber's E-Myth Revisited. Great book, 5/5. Worth at least 2-5 years of experience.
I was kind of disappointed with One Million. Would rate 3/5 and equal to 30 days in the lab, which still means it was a fair deal for the price, but I'm used to reading only classics. E-Myth is a tough act to follow.
Answering my own questions:
1) Jacob summarized the content of his chapter quite well. For me it was one of the most pleasant parts of reading One Million but Jacob's best writing by far is in the ERE book/blog/forum. I could be a lot more critical but I'll stop here because I don't really like it when I'm in range and other people are talking about me, but not at me.
2) Looking past the plain writing style, the bright light bulbs are mostly in Chapter 1. I had high expectations but the rest of the book was full of generalities and short on specifics. It really felt as if he had made an outline of business-related topics and then filled it out using personal experience, interviews, and Google search. There didn't seem to be much strategy to the book's organization. The $1 million gimmick tied the book together.
The book offered breadth while I was expecting depth. There's a lot of "I never tried X but here's an overview of how it works so it's in your toolbox." Since I was starting from zero, I actually benefited from it. But Google would get you just as far if you knew what keywords to search. There's very little secret sauce. Instead I would have preferred a detailed step by step model or example of how to build a tried-and-tested business from scratch. I understand such a plan is fragile but why must it always be general principles and the rest left as an "exercise for the reader?"
E-Myth killed my business dreams in the front matter even before I got to Chapter 1. However, One Million had a few words of encouragement toward the end that re-opened my mind to the possibility of starting a business. That has to be worth something.
Overall recommendation: I wouldn't consider it a classic or essential reading. If you have little business knowledge and you're looking for white hat information on getting started, it makes a nice overview. It won't lead you down the wrong road or into dark backalleys where you'll get ambushed by the sharks of the business world. However, you will certainly need other how-to books to continue. It's a summary, not a walkthrough.