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I don't disagree with your personal hassle.
The point of my message is targeted strictly to publishers.
There should be one (or more) 'typical' curves for book sales (intro, promo, word of mouth sales, discount, maturity...) which fall into some type of a curve that probably looks like an asymmetrical bell curve.
If DRM really 'protect's content, then the 'protection' should show up as a difference in the shape of the bell curve after introduction. After all, if copies are pirated, sales go down faster. Conceptually, if DRM provides 'real' protection (rather than imaginary protection) then the further you go from the initial selling date, the more the curve should maintain a higher level (meaning no pirating).
If, as we all suspect, honest people just want to buy books, then the curves should be essentially identical for the same 'class' of books (sci fi, fiction, mystery...) regardless of DRM protection.
The "ease of use" issue is a different one - and a different study.
Will you (and others) buy more books if there isn't a DRM hassle, increasing volume?
For that, you would probably need to take a reasonably successful author (ie, one with some sales volume), release one book with DRM, and the next one without, and see if the variation in sales exceeds what has been done previously.
One added note - publishers may have a perceived higher value, and be able to charge more, for a book with DRM than one without.
And this is just some superficial pecking on the keyboard to come up with these three variants. I'm sure there are many others.
(And you guys thought this was an easy question).
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