Indeed you will, and its a really nice companion for this long journey!
Curiously enough, I started my journey with Tae Kim and his famous “「です」 is NOT the same as 「だ」” (section 4.1.5 of his book). I also used Tofugu quite a lot, its articles are long and detailed by worth it.
I came to Jay Rubin’s ‘Making Sense of Japanese’ (I think with him that ‘Gone Fishin’’ was a much better title) through this very community and agree with the community that the book has to be read after reaching an intermediate level.
That said, the concept that “some uses of で are the て-form of だ” is also in Tofugu (in this article). I would agree with this idea, as it is the way to attach a な-adjective or a noun to another adjective or noun, which is one of the key functions of the て-form.
In relation to “both で and な are deformations of the coupula だ”, I would agree with the former (で as deformation of the copula だ, if by deformation we mean the て-form).
For the latter (な as deformation of the copula だ), I’ve seen in a couple of places (this Tofugu article is one of them) a different theory: that it would be a simplification of にあり, which was used a lot of a time ago for a similar function, thus: にある → なる → な.
Finally, at the end of the day the aim is to express yourself and interact in Japanese, whether it be speaking, reading, listening, or writing. So, if CD “clicks” with you, use it as your guide along with BP and other resources you may find that make sense to you. You might say that, for this journey, the means justify the end.