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"what is the qualitative empirical difference between reflected light and emissive light that should cause a [non-psychosomatic] response in the reader?"
This question is still unanswered, of course. There is clearly by the studies a difference which goes beyond ambient lighting, but the exact cause - and why some people are more affected than others - remains an open question. I keep up with the literature on this, and there is no proposed mechanism which survives serious scrutiny as far as I know. (And if there's a paper I've missed, please feel free to link it to me)
However, to say that screens "must" be emissive because only it can cover a wide range of light conditions is utterly missing the point. Not only are many emissive screens utterly unreadable in direct light (and hence cannot "adapt" beyond a certain level), there are also minimum brightness levels which even LED lighting can make. You have to look at how often people actually tend to read in different light levels - reflective epaper screens are suitable for a wide range of them, including in direct sunlight.
What you can't really do is dismiss the effect given it's wide reporting by a subset of people, even if you yourself don't suffer from it. People's personal choice of reading device is up to them, and why "if it glows, it blows" is a histrionic turn of phrase, the eyestrain some people suffer does make reflective, non-backlit devices their only real choice for on-screen reading.
More than that, you can use a dedicated frontlight to light a reflective screen, but a non-reflective screen has few options when outside it's designed ambient range of illumination. While epaper is not ideal for everyone, there is no evidence that it will become extinct in the near or even mid-term.
In the long term, certainly, as displays advance then it's likely dedicated epaper screens will fade out, but it'd be premature to say which specific technologies will do.
(And it's not a "conspiracy theory" to wait - and to dismiss early hype about a product - until there are actual end-hardware samples and reviews from a company with zero track record before accepting any statements on their product's marketworthyness!)
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