For the convenience of being able to carry it on your phone, make highlights and notes that you can search in the future, for the ability (if you're interested in it) of finding information about passages others who've read the same book found most interesting, for the ability to "loan" the book to a relative or friend in a distant state without having to send the book through the mail.

I'm not trying to say you're wrong or that I even disagree, I'm just trying to point out that people should have different expectations with ebooks and physical books (like I mentioned in my other post which was downvoted). ebooks are awesome in some ways physical books are not (and they're lousy in some ways that they really oughtn't be).

The point I most strongly agree on is where you say this is in its infancy (like the browsers wars). The first ebook I read was on a Windows PocketPC in about 2000 and it sucked. The whole technology has gotten dramatically better and I expect it will continue to, but it's not more than about 10 years old, really, and only really started gathering steam within about the past 5 years. And I'm not saying "therefore we should all have low expectations" but I, personally, am willing to look at all the things that have been done well and focus more on those than focusing on typography or whether editing is immediately correct.