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Foundation Series: Alternative Reading Order

I received a message from Craig Taylor who feels that a better way of reading the Foundation series is in chronological order which is as follows:

Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation's Fear
Foundation and Chaos
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth

Here is his message, giving his reasons:

I have to disagree with your suggested reading order for the Foundation series. I read them the way you suggested originally, simply because I read them as Asimov wrote them. But I am currently re-reading the entire series. I feel that if you read them in the written order, it spoils everthing! You find out all about psychohistory and it's success (and later failure) before you read about the early years of Hari Seldon. I would rather read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation first so that I would be able to wonder if this psychohistory thing was really going to work.

Also, if you read Foundation and Earth before Prelude to Foundation, you won't really have any idea who R. Daneel Olivaw is when Golan Trevise comes across him on (or in) earth. Unless, I suppose, you read the Robots series earlier with Elijah Bailey.

So, there is my humble opinion, for what it is worth.

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