Much earlier is an understatement, but I'm quite understanding of the fact that they wouldn't have the room to fit it all in the way it's going. I'm actually quite pleased with how they're doing the pacing change. It hasn't train wrecked off of the same track the manga's been following.
Not yet at least.
I'm hoping that it doesn't do that in the future, though, mind you.
Everything with the events with Joshua have happened in vol 2. They've not really breached the vol 1 ending. I think they are, for pacing's sake, going to work with vols 1-3 together in a flurry, as they're really only introductions... or sort of. The introduction of a character named Rizel is pretty much the ending of all character intros and the time to turn over to the 'apparent' plot... Of course, there's another plot underneath everything happening. :3
Manga Spoiler- Events from vol 6 are mentioned here. :3
General Series Spoilers :3 (About true forms)
If you -are- interested in seeing Chrno's true form, it does show up on a couple of the manga covers:
vol 2 - This vol basically follows the story of how it all began, and what happened to Joshua. It's more of an extended version of what happened at the beginning of the ep.
vol 5 - Teehee. It's all (A)ion's fault. :3 That's all I'm saying on this issue. *snickers*
The story of 'Contractor' in the manga actually is one of my favorites of the entire manga. It finally gives you a peek of something that may possibly happen in the series (and does! :3 - Moriyama is a master at preplanning. The 'Dive' that occurs later (vol 3) is for a specific purpose in vol 6. :3 )
That's why I'm really happy with the way they're taking the series. It's really nice, I think. They've got a different pacing, but they're covering all the bases that Moriyama covered, so it's all good in my book. ^_^