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Other than a set of people who like to nitpick over the technical differences - most digital book buyers really don't care that much about format as long as their books load nicely and are readable.
ePub isn't really the issue. The issue is standardization such as the often asked question "Can I put the my Kindle books on a Sony Reader" (or whatever iteration of that you can imagine). All these different formats and different DRM schemes hamper buyers. It's a little like if the food industry forced you into choosing a kind of dinnerware and then being required to shop only at the grocery store that supplies the food for that kind of plate.
Customers like having options. They like knowing that the files they buy today will be readable on the device they own 2 years from now. They like having the choice of shopping at whatever store pleases them the most at that moment. Suppliers on the other hand - like locking their customers in to their own store environment and putting up barriers to switching.
So ... that's the debate.
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