No. You would buy a hard copy or a real e-reader so that you could actually read it. Tablets are just terrible for book-reading and apple killed the e-book market with the release of the tablet. Hopefully someday it will recover, but after spending so much money on a toy few are eager to buy a real e-reader.
No idea, since I never had a dedicated e-reader. I prefer a general purpose tablet which can be used as e-reader in addition and also can run free software without any DRM to begin with. What benefits does dedicated e-reader have?
Those are the only benefits I can think of. But they both make and break the e-book experience. Reading an e-book on a tablet? Wouldn't cross my mind, ever. I'd much rather buy the book. Read an e-book on a e-reader? Yes, please - I'll gladly pay more than the book costs if I have to (which I do a lot of the times).
I have several problems with this. You can't carry many books with you, and you need too much room to store them. If I really really need something that I read quite regularly, then sure, I'd buy a paper book. But in most cases I'd prefer a digital book, and I have no problems with reading it on a tablet. May be there are DRM-free hackable e-readers out there, but I didn't research this.
Yes, DRM is an issue. Personally, when paying about the same or more for a DRM-e-book than for the real thing I consider it fair game and morally acceptable for me to strip the DRM (no one can claim that I'm getting a cheaper version because of DRM when the DRM crap costs more than a physical book).
Currently this is childs play so I'm gambling somewhat on that this won't change or my e-reader won't be able to new books from certain places.
Of course, this makes me a criminal.
About "criminality" of breaking DRM, this nonsense is really annoying. More people should support campaigns like this one: http://fixthedmca.org