I guess my final takeaway on balancing all of these pros and cons is, like just about everything, that this absolutely can be the perfect and right solution for some people, and it can be absolutely
the exact wrong solution for others, and for most it's probably in between, and should be weighed against your other opportunities.
Every large publisher lacks a viable indie or even pseudo-indie ebook offering for their authors that could counter this pressure (and those publishers in bed with Author
Solutions and ASI's sock puppet spawn are all swimming in the
exact wrong direction and are on the
wrong side of history if they want to protect their ebook businesses from Amazon).