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To some extent, I agree with Leaping Gnome and anotherchance that my typical reading experience is read a bit, bookmark, read a bit more, bookmark, and so on, until the book is done. This is generally how it works. I do, however, get interrupted frequently when reading or can only catch a page or two here and there, so quite often I will go back to check on something that I read previously to make sure that I remember it correctly. (As an aside, I catch a fair number of continuity errors and references to the wrong character this way!). So, for me, a search feature would be very beneficial and useful.
When reading technical documents, whether for work or for pleasure, or educational materials, the features that Walter S. Mossberg refers to in his Wall Street Journal article are what makes electronic reading a much, much better solution than paper. If you've never used a Tablet PC, you might not know what you're missing! So, to really target and provide a more useful experience to the educational market, particularly for university and college students, I think those functions would be crucial to an e-book reader's success.
Additionally, even when reading fiction, you often come across a phrase, saying, or even valuable information that would be nice to note and keep track of for future use. Being able to highlight this and have it automatically saved to a reference file with some keywords, the usual references such as title, author, copyright date, page number, etc. would be really handy. The original e-book from which it came could then be erased, but the reference file would be permanent and could be synced with your main PC for a wonderful, personalized knowledgebase. Then think about just how useful all that reading time could really become for you.
Yeah, I know, I know. But, I can dream, can't I??
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