This works and displays correctly, but is unbearably slow on iPad 2 whereas the PDF loads instantly. What is the point then or does it work a lot better in desktop browsers?
It is no surprise iOS handles rendering PDF's so quickly and so well and without the need for an third party app, it always has from the release of the first iPhone. This is also why print to PDF is built in on OSX.
PDF the file format adds many, many things to that (forms, encryption, DRM, notes, a JavaScript engine, reflow information, etc)
The idea is that now the document becomes more controllable and accessible, say you can put Google Analytics in your resume written in LaTeX; or maybe an social reading service, where you can comment, annotate and share.
Unlike PDF viewers, web browers are never optimized for this kind of messy inputs. The next version of pdf2htmlEX will be focused on optimizations, e.g. smaller size of background images, hopefully that would help.
I truly wish there was at least one ground that hadn't been touched by "social" crap.
Still like old Google Reader with its OLD social features.