It’s odd that he would give a description in TKD that would accurately apply to syllables ending with {o} and not to the far more common case of {o} between two consonants.

It wouldn't be odd if Okrand were explaining why ow doesn't appear at the end of a word instead of explaining o as a diphthong.

See the original text:

Note that when a vowel is followed by w or y, the combination of letters may not represent the same sound it does in English spelling:

[chart: aw, ay, ey, Iy, oy]

Klingon uy resembles ooey in English gooey. Klingon ew resembles nothing in English, but can be approximated by running Klingon e and u together. Likewise, Klingon Iw is I and u run together. No words in Klingon have ow or uw. If they did, they would be indistinguishable from words ending in o and u, respectively.

You see the point here is not so much the character of Klingon vowels as it is how to read various combinations you'll find in the book. It doesn't say Klingon o sounds like Klingon ow; it says Klingon words don't end with ow because it would sound like the word ends in o. This tells me that Klingon words that end in o end in a diphthong.

Interestingly, of all the listed diphthongs, only aw, ay, ey, oy, and uy allow a glottal stop after them: aw', ay', ey', oy', uy'. The combinations ew', Iw', and Iy' do not occur in any word even though there is no rule against it.

Did he really give us that description ONLY for the syllable {gho-} and not give us a description for every other use in the language? REALLY?

Did I say that? Only the syllable gho? I didn't say that.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name