I know that getting users to read About, FAQs or the Formatting page is not something that will ever be guaranteed, but at the same time I feel that the layout/lack of highlighting of these areas of the site can lead to a lot of new users posting questions, answers and comments that have to be cleaned up.
I don't know if it's possible within the structure of SE to add additional links to top of the sidebar on the main page highlighting these sections more or if we could also add a link to the formatting guide on the ask a question page.
Praise where praise is do I do like that the FAQ is prominently displayed to the right when asking a question to help new users.