Some of the things he said made sense though. Basically, if this guy wanted such rigid requirements, he should have stuck with a high-end custom publishing house. O'Reilly has never tried to make its name synonymous with a quality publishing house; they are known because they gave a voice to smart people in the tech world. Since then, it has expanded, mostly because techs no longer buy books in print as much as they did, and because to be profitable in a down market, you have to cut corners. The problem that plagued this author is that he associated the O'Reilly name with "high design quality" and that just isn't true. O'Reilly should be used when you want a recognizable publisher for tech books and to be included in their collection. If you are smart, you will also use the standard cover with an animal on it, such as a chinchilla.