Wow. Generally we used to release few books per year only for this reason. Each book and each author needs attention and we care a lot about focusing on details. (This is a little bit more difficult when we had to coordinate many authors on one book. Thank god, we had SVN).

We do totally agree with you. Every publisher has different priorities: the previous owner aimed only to "make money" in a "super-simple-way" aka do not pay freelancers, authors unless they start to mention legal way.

Let us guess the company you applied for your book, Apress?