In fairness, in section 6.3.5.2 of the installation guide, it does say "By default, debian-installer installs the Gnome desktop environment." So my "no useful information" claim is an overstatement. But the way the choices are displayed to the user in the selection menu is still counterintuitive. (And I do realize I'm probably a member of a small subset of users who'd want a window manager and not a full-fledged desktop by default.)
Dave