Hmm.
A huge percentage of my own library (particularly the fiction section) consists of MMPBs, some of which I have had rebound (technically only recased, as the pad-binding irrevocably ruined the signatures for Smyth-sewing) because they were either that good, or of that much historical value.
Even before I amassed my complete set of The Bobbsey Twins as an adult (that was the children's novel series I grew up on), Stratemeyer and G&D had already transitioned the various Stratemeyer children's novel series from Smyth-sewn HCs to something between low-end TPBs and high-end MMPBs, and I resented that almost as much as I resented that they'd also completely abandoned the original Bobbsey, Hardy, and Drew canons. I personally don't like the idea of books only being available in pad-bound PBs (or the occasional pad-bound HC), and am pleasantly surprised when I encounter the rare sewn PB. I've had more than one PB self-destruct on me because it was only held together with padding adhesive, and the paper didn't play nicely with the adhesive*).
And with ST TPBs, I can't help feeling cheated: I'm paying almost as much as I would for a low-end (but still Smyth-sewn, for durability) HC, on nice paper, and it's taking up nearly as much shelf space, but I'm getting something that's not that much of an improvement over a decent-quality MMPB.
(Could somebody help me out here, and cite the first ST novel for which the initial publication was a TPB? I'd like to take a look at how the binding has held up.)
I would certainly agree that e-books are ideally suited for books that only get read once, and then discarded, but I don't do that; I keep almost everything, and I actually re-read a lot of it. And as to the lack of bulk and weight of physical books, well, given that I already travel with at least ten pounds of tech (a DOSbook as well as a Chromebook, and anything old enough to be configured as a viable DOSbook is going to be fairly heavy and bulky), and space on my Chromebook is very much at a premium, given that I have Linux apps on it. If a physical book fails (which only happens if the paper or the binding goes bad), it's just one book; if an e-reader fails (and there's a lot more that can go wrong), you're at the mercy of your cloud storage. Then again, with e-books, you're at the mercy of the publisher anyway; they could decide to withdraw a book "with extreme prejudice" at any time, for any reason (or for no reason at all).
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*I was a little bit heartbroken when the binding started failing after only a few years on the copy of Asimov's Treasury of Humor that my since-deceased mother gave me as a gift. While I finally went on Alibris, and bought a used HC, it's just not the same, especially since I found a few ballpoint pen markings in it.
