@CWatkinsNash - creating "another app" to target that type of user is an idea that's been mentioned on other threads, I may have even said it myself at one point a long time ago IIRC on a thread about someone rewriting calibre in C++. Wonder if he is still working on that?
I think the big challenge for someone attempting that is in the same way calibre has grown organically, you are going to fairly quickly find yourself hitting some "must have" feature which opens a giant can of worms. My example use case I've mentioned is where a person just has a single device. However lets assume your new software is so utterly brilliantly simple and amazing the user tells the rest of their family about it. Suddenly they want to use other devices with your software. Rut roh, multi-device support. And maybe some of those devices are only ePub and some are only MOBI - darn it, that means conversions are required. So quickly you are kakked.
Those are just two simple examples of where scaling upwards from a basic application creates astronomical development/support requirements, that calibre has had years to iron out and resolve. The beauty of calibre is that it scales upwards (in functionality) exceptionally well - through plugins, custom columns and the ever ongoing dev cycles etc. All the kudos for that belongs to Kovid & co of course.
So the barriers to entry for someone writing their own lightweight alternative is pretty huge unless they massively limit their scope - like for instance K4PC supporting one format and one device. The question it seems we a number agree with is whether calibre should in any way attempt to scale down.
When it comes to managing books unless you have been using ereaders/mgmt software for years (very few have) then predicting what features you will really want/need is damn hard. Pick wrong, and hours spent gathering metadata and making your collection look pretty go down the drain and have to be done all over again. Pick calibre, and at least whatever need that you "might" come up with, chances are calibre can do it. Those who have stuck with it are perhaps like me feeling fairly smug and happy with our decisions. Whether the love can be shared further is the question
