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There is a lot of fud around, and unfortunately it appears the OP has succumbed to it. I agree with the points made in reply. In particular, the fact that I can customise the layout to some extent on all my ereaders is so valuable to me that I would prefer ebooks over paper books whenever possible for this alone. I am yet to find a printed book where I can alter even part of the layout to my liking, other than destructively in the case where such a book is really that bad.
But what I really want to do is make yet one more attempt to slay what seems to be the currently most prevalent zombie meme. In this incarnation, the OP says "ebooks have reached a plateau". In fact, ebooks seem to go from strength to strength, except of course in the case of Big 5 Ebooks, where deliberate over-pricing has produced the result expected. Some people do seem to be buying print books instead, aided by Amazon discounting some of those books to the degree that a hard cover is sometimes around the same price or in some cases even cheaper than the ebook. It would seem, however, that many people are just turning to the Indie/Self-Publishing market for their ebooks instead. The limited statistics which the press are so fond of relying on for stories like this use date that excludes most of the Indie/Self-Published Market. No such statistics or the date relied upon by them are perfect, but the Author Earnings reports seem to come closest.
I also feel compelled to comment on the nonsense about ebook formats not catering for tyhe creation of so-called beautiful ebooks. All the tools are there. There are members of this forum who produce ebooks professionally. Off the top of my head Hitch comes to mind. I have confidence that her and others can produce real works of art in existing formats, though, of course, not at bargain basement prices. I suspect the reason there are few elaborately beautiful ebooks, if this is in fact true, is because there is little demand for them.
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