Frabjous - are you familiar with the A List Apart website? (
http://www.alistapart.com/)
They spend a great deal of time addressing the very issues you're bringing up - especially the hoops people jump through to achieve decent typography in different formats/environs (pdf/css/etc, web/mobile/print). They have some great documents both philosophical and technical on a wide range of issues centered around typography, accessibility, and standardization.