Read the melding rules. +1 damage and attack rolls and melding lets use the hand freely despite actually holding the weapon with only a -2 bonus.
But I will edit several of the lines of text you pointed out. It's all been written in different days. I'll say it's the inter workings that are complex though some weapons are functionally very simple.
Lastly I do not understand what you mean about things not matching up the entries match up as far as I am aware.