I love unitaskers, the right tool for the right job and all, but that is just the problem. Electronic devices in this day and age that do only one thing are obsolete.
I would love to find a cell phone today without all this wasted space for CCD, SMS, etc crap that just is a mobile device for talking to someone else. They don't make them anymore because people don't want unitaskers because of lack of focus. The technology created AD(H)D is causing the technology to need more things to keep these peoples attention on it to kep spending on the technology like "apps".
I don't want a computer that only does one thing, when I already have one that does much much more, especially not one with a proprietary file format because of some DRM, that forces me to use only that device and should that device foul up ALL my money on the "books" is wasted unless I buy an entire new device. That is why the world embraced the PDF format so widely because it was cross-platform compatible and could be used on whatever device you were on at the time by moving it to that device. WotC doesn't want you to "share" files even with yourself, because copying the file to have on each computer you own would be in violation of copyright as technically you are supposed to NOT copy it in the first place, but the gray area is if you do, you are actually supposed to be moving it, so you only own one copy, which means deleting it form the other location and if you need it there again, you must move it back...legally.
Also the e-readers I have seen just don't perform what an e-book should in the form of advantages for reference materials. The are basically digital micro-fiche machines.
electronic reference book needs:
-searchability
-full color display of diagrams and illustrations to depict things in the text
-useable without connection to the power company in case of power outages
-full offline ability to use the material in case of network outages
-accessibility features for differently-abled persons
These are jsut a few things an electronic reader would need to be better than a book, other than mass storage capability. The ability to delete bought books as has been done is a GIANT turn-off for many, as they could think lots of other problems are being had from device failure, payment error so the "book" was repossessed, and mountains of other things that you just wouldn't know from the thing not working all of a sudden. Granted some could be simple like battery charge depleted.
The last one touches maybe a sensitive topic, and one D&D has never really done anything about, but if moving to all digital and the e-book format, they would ahve too, as a full-blown computer can have these things installed to allow text-to-speech, as blind persons can read braille books or listen to books on tape; but I havent yet seen an e-reader, that actually will read to you. Do any of them have text-to-speech?
You cannot install "apps" to these simple readers to do other things with. WebTV was a cute idea, but it died out because it was basically a reading tool, and most people want more interaction that the ability to read, but it had more functionality than any of the e-readers, and some of the same problems.
The medium may change to digital for D&D, but these e-books just don't have what it takes and people want them to do for gamers. Character Builder wont work on it (if/when it does work), the entire DDi wont work on it since it is a simple reader, you still need an intermediary device to get from the website to the reader.
I am sorry to say, that the "duplicate a book in electronic format, but able to hold a library" would have been a good idea 20 years ago, but today it jsut doesnt do enough as a device and was outmoded by laptops and these last-gen phones before it ever hit the markets.
