I was hoping to do the same (albeit much easier to follow than their own walkthrough), but I'm going to sit back for a while and see what develops.
These could be early teething problems, so I'm not going to judge them so soon.
That said, I'm surprised by what's not included in the main interface (VPC, ELB, to start with).
you hit the nail on the head (oppositely, I was surprised to see them deploy out HA Proxy by default). The lack of VPC makes this far less appealing. I've been working on a scaling capable VPC configuration with quite a few moving parts and got so giddy with excitement over the potential of OpsWorks, then I tested it out and realized it's nowhere near ready for prime time and is missing some major players.
Still...Props to them and am excited to see it mature.
That said, I'm surprised by what's not included in the main interface (VPC, ELB, to start with).