Thanks Jane! That's a good point. I would agree that it's hard to believe that publishers want e-books to fail as a whole, and that the large investment is evidence of that.
I probably didn't make it very clear, but the point here was not that these arguments were correct, but that these are the points that are usually thrown about in discussions about e-book pricing across the web.
(Well, with the exception of price inelasticity, which just seemed so obvious that it should be thrown in, an which also could help explain why publishers can expect to keep the price high even in a low-cost format. However, from what you've said, it would imply that a primary driving factor of pricing is the sense of monopolistic power over the availability of a particular book in various forms.)
I think that a lot of people feel that these arguments are the full picture, and I'm hoping to point out that these are the popular culture of e-book pricing, not necessarily what's going on.
By the way, if there are any budding economists out there, I'd say that this topic could be a nice topic for a master's thesis or summer paper. Be sure to share it with us if you do!