Jack:
1. I do discuss the issues with smaller images in the second paragraph in the Dimensions section in Chapter 5.
The actual size of the viewable book area on the Kindle 1 screen is 524px × 640px, and the viewable book area on the Kindle 2 screen is 520px × 622px. Any images larger or smaller than that (including those sized 450px × 550px) will be automatically re-sized until the width or height fits the viewable book area. At 261px × 319px on Kindle 1 and 260px × 311px on Kindle 2 (half the size of the viewable book area) the image is no longer resized to fit the book area’s width or height. This is important when you are creating logos or other small images for your book. Logos usually look great when sized around 75–100px wide. However, images will still lose some quality when reduced in size, especially photos. I suggest that you keep your images at the Kindle 2 dimensions (520px × 622px) if you can, so that your image quality does not suffer.
2. I mention the page-break-before:always CSS in the section on Page Breaks in Chapter 5.
3. I mention the top-margin and bottom-margin CSS in the section on Margins in Chapter 5.
4. The problem with re-using your HTML wholesale is that there are best practices for all of the devices. In an ePub you have to hit the lowest common denominator so that your text looks decent on the Sony, Stanza, ADE, and other readers. However, if you are creating a book for the Kindle, it is best to make sure your book looks good on its screen. The Kindle applies some very specific formatting that you have to explicitly override in some cases, and it has specific image and table issues that make using a common HTML file untenable.
In addition, the ePub and Mobipocket formats are not the same. The OPF support is different, the HTML support is different, and the CSS support is different. There are a large number of areas where you cannot make the two mesh, and it is best to treat them as different animals. Sure a fiction book can be easily converted from one to the other, but once you start getting into business books, textbooks, and other books with formatting irregularities, you are much better off dealing with two different source files.
5. Give me a break about the links. I was in a rush to get my own book done in the midst of a variety of other projects for my clients, and I forgot to make the links active. It is fixed and should be active on the Kindle store soon.
6. As for "the immaturity of his eBook formatting experience" -- I am widely known as the only non-Amazon expert on the Kindle format. I taught a tutorial on it at the O'Reilly Tools of Change conference, and I am the eBook consultant for LibreDigital, one of the leading eBook conversion and archiving companies in the publishing industry. I have been an eBook Developer for more than 6 years, I run my own business providing eBook conversion services to authors and publishers, and I have formatted hundreds of print books into eBook formats. I dislike being spoken of in such a derogatory way, and I would hope you could take the time to actually read my book and look at my background before making such disrespectful statements.
Sincerely,
Joshua Tallent
http://kindleformatting.com