As a longtime Kindle user, it's far more a virtual book experience than anything out there. I have several nonfiction books that I purchased on my Kindle that contained photos, charts and diagrams which didn't work all that well on the Kindle. They're awesome on the iPad. As is the indexing. I'd say the ability to jump to a page, chapter or photograph is more than a fair trade-off for viewing a low-res cover.
I'm not disagreeing that it's not the best out there.
I just think (as someone not used to eBooks)
The best is not yet good enough.
I wish to see a proper hi-res front and rear cover image
I also want to see embedded fonts.
There is something special about a real book when different books use different typefaces, it makes it feel special and new when it physically looks different to some other book.
I understand they make eBooks as small as they could, data wise, but with the cost of memory these days being so small, I think they stripped eBooks down that bit too much.
As I say, give up proper front and back cover art, to set the scene, and also the ability to view in the typeface the publisher chose for the book.