Anyway, the book is called "Secrets of the Sages" and it has many interviews from Game developers from different companies. It has some very nice code samples throughout the book. For instance, it has the code used to port Quake from 8-bit to 16-bit pixel format. It also explains a method called duff's device which is used to unroll a loop using no breaks in a switch statement.
So the moral of the story is that DirectX7 rulez and DirectX8 droolz, I think. Maybe I didn't interrpret the message correctly...
Book was okay, but not great.