In terms of the whole argument concerning ebook pricing, one of the more interesting and realistic analyses I've seen so far concerning the question of how much money the publishers make on their side of the fence is in a recent post by Charlie Stross on his blog regarding the ebook market.
http://tinyurl.com/stross-on-ebooks
It's the comments that follow his post that really count, particularly his own comment at number 54 (there were almost a hundred comments last time I looked, so you'll have to scroll down a bit). I know a lot of people here feel like they're being ripped off by ebook prices, and sometimes they are, but not always. The point Charlie makes is that publishers make much less from the books they produce than you might think they do.
Ps - I know some people also think Amazon are the 'good guys' with their across-the-board ten dollar pricing on new titles, but the fact is that Amazon are taking a hit on those lower prices - the publishers are still selling them the books at a regular price. Some of those publishers are worried that if the Amazon kindle market becomes powerful enough, they might in turn be forced to lower the prices at their end or lose out on a substantial chunk of their business which already has a historically desperately thin margin at the best of times. Worth thinking about.