In the book they are trying to break down one movement into several pieces: feet positions, alingments, amount of turn and so on. You can't take the feet positions and use just them, without looking at all those other things. And the only way to satisfy all the requirements (alingments, amount of turn) is to do it as you describe: forward. alingments are telling you where in what direction in the room the steps go (and they refer to feet alingments); and feet positions, as I understand, refer to feet position relative to each other more than to directions in which you are moving.
I feel that to understand what the book says one needs some experience with the book, and previous knowledge of the figure or knowledge of other (similar) figures. The book is tricky, but that is because it is difficult to break down movement into parts in an organized manner.
as for experience thing, you can look up that the book says often to the side when it is really what we know as forward (well, they are referring to feet positions and when we say forward we mean that the direction of movement of the step was forward, so we are just taling about different things).
you can also compare what they say about a step that you know to what they say about the step that you don't know, and that can help with interpretation:
look at what it says in the book for reverse turn:
4 LF forward
5 RF to the side
6 LF closes to RF
is step 5 really to the side? we think of it as forward, but the book says to the side. If it was really to the side, then starting step 4 facing LOD you'd finish step 5 also facing LOD, but really you end backing wall or DW, so somewhere between 4 and 5 you turn, and you should end up with your RF to the side from your left foot, but the overall direction your body moved was forward...
Anyway, keep in mind that they are referring to strictly feet positions in the first column...
