Dennis. I'm enjoying the discussion. And I openly acknowledge that I do not regard large publisher's favourably. Please forgive me for not answering your first 3 questions directly here as I am a little pushed for time at the moment. I'm sure you probably do know what my answers would be, so please feel free to give your own opinion.
In answer to your last question, I think we are seeing how price competition works in the present situation. I gave my opinion indirectly in this thread some time ago:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ht=wheat+chaff
I think in some ways we currently have 2 markets, a higher priced one for the products of traditional publishers, and a much lower priced one for Indies, including Amazon's own imprints and some of the more innovative generally smaller publishers. I think the Big Five particularly are attempting to differentiate their books on the basis of quality so as to avoid having to compete with the lower priced "new market" books. I also think the Big 5 are attempting to slow ebook adoption in favour of print books. What I expect we will see and are already seeing to some extent is the gradual merger of these two markets. Though I think the Big 5 attempt to differentiate their books on the basis of quality is doomed to failure in the longer term, they are succeeding to some extent through their blockbuster authors, who they must of course see are well looked after. But as these authors cease to write, I expect they will have increasing problems replacing them, and will probably need to attract such authors from Indie publishing. This in turn will almost certainly mean that their costs will rise substantially, and survival will likely require drastic cuts in other areas. Nevertheless, I can't see any large publishers going broke any time soon provided they have half-way competent management. Now books basically never go "out of print" their extensive backlist is an extremely valuable asset. Sorry but I'm out of time for the moment.