Just wanted to chime in here. I agree with the general result of the original diagnosis for the broad sample set.
However, in my personal experience things are quite different.
In general I find better prices on amazon than anywhere just like the OP set. But *MY* second place is always FW, not B&N or Sony.
The reason it's in second is more about actually having books I happen to be looking for, and having a better price than Amazon or Books on Board. I do not buy from Sony because I don't have a Sony reader.
I buy enough from FW that the rebates really pay off, I get "free" books regularly. And while I dropped out of my club sub there during my stint with my Kindle 2, I will probably get back into it soon as they have another 100% rebate sale.
My main point here is that the particular set of books a person buys can dramatically change the perspective of where the best value is. I prefer FW often even if it's a little higher price than Amazon just because of having less of that mobi soapscum to wash off my conscience
And lastly, I don't understand why so many books *I* look at on BN are terribly priced compared to all other sources, but especially wrt FW. I have seen examples of books on BN and FW that have different LIST PRICES listed. W-T-F is up with that? Seems like an error to me. It's the sort of thing that makes no sense.
Luckily in these cases, eReader DRM was available in either side of that fence so it didn't matter to me, I just paid the lower price and used my normal reader (Stanza).
eBook pricing is insane. But, after time with Kindle I'm pretty sure I won't intentionally limit my purchasing choices again.