There are several reasons I can't try tools like Newsraider and TomeRaider:
- Doesn't run on my OS of choice (Linux or BSD)
- Doesn't come with source code so I can customize it to my needs
- Doesn't support my preferred Palm reader applications
- Uses "Yet Another Proprietary Templating System"
While I'm sure its a great reader and I'm sure its output looks satisfactory, its not for me, mostly for the reasons above.
I use Perl, Python, C, whatever happens to do the job, because there simply are no other alternatives.