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Nice thread about an important problem.
There are a number of problems associated with ebooks that need attention. First, for serious rather than recreational reading page numbers are now meaningless, at best as internal references to p-book editions. Standard formats need to include rational numbering schemes as mandatory requirements.
If we end up numbering chapters and paragraphs, the option of showing the numbers has to be dealt with elegantly - at the moment this is a black-hole. Page numbers are effectively gone, and nothing is there to replace them.
Second, and I am strongly biased in this towards non-fiction works, reflowing formats are fine for most novels, however, things get a lot more complex when serious non-fiction texts become involved and frankly we are nowhere close to solving this one.
I believe PDF is the way to go, but not in the way it is implemented. Large print books are needed, sometimes more words on the page are critical (small type) reading devices will always vary in size, some readers will want references in the margins (Shakepeare's plays for instance, but many other works being used for study would benefit, precisely because page numbers are a dead issue) and the idea of catering for this with different PDF versions of the same book becomes mind bogglingly complex.
The contradiction is making a fixed typographic system (PDF) into a semi-dynamic one. I use the term semi-dynamic, because there is little need to make it on-the-fly, after all the devices exist before the ebook, it should be easy enough to generate material for the size of different devices.
That is the problem as I see it. Does TeX fill the bill? Or is it necessary to approach it from a macro style sheet point of view? I tend to favour the latter solution.
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