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PDFs are reproductions of a printed page; much as a microfiche, just in digital form.
Consider the most common way to generate a PDF: you install a printer driver and "print" a reflowable document (HTML, rtf, Doc, whatever) into PDF to freeze the formatting ad render it uneditable.
A proper ebook adjusts its content dynamically to fit the display medium and does not require scrolling, panning, zooming; a Proper ebook lets the render application define pagination, margins, fonts.
If you ocr'ed the books and stilll have the pre-pdf source, you could turn the files into proper ebooks and then read them on anything from a cellphone to a PC screen. Screen size (whether 3", 5", 6" or whatever) would have no impact on readability whereas trying to read a typical pdf on 5-6in reader is an exercise in trying to trying out zoom factors, panning, zooming, etc.
PDFs (unless "printed" to a small virtual page) tend to require screens approximating A4/8.5x11in.
Consider that your choice of PDF format limits you essentially to a KindleDX as your reading device to accomdate the page you're trying to replicate, whereas ebooks can be read in portrait, landscape, single-page or dual page layouts; you have a choice of font face and/or font size, your choice of margins, line spacing, hyphenation on or off, justification on or off, etc.
Basically PDFs are a *static* representation of information whereas ebooks are a dynamic medium; you have to work *hard* to force a static display onto an ebook and even then it can be overridden with a good reader app.
Which isn't to say there aren't good uses for PDF.
But ebooks isn't one of them.
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