Technology doesn't make this an either-or situation, and some time reading RFCs really makes the pain of ascii obvious. Just ask for reflowable pdf. Figures,

Technology doesn't make this an either-or situation, and some time reading RFCs really makes the pain of ascii obvious. Just ask for reflowable pdf. Figures, equations, cross-references (with hyperlinks), actual typography and design, full-text search, and the ability to adapt to your viewer. If you don't like that implementation, then may I suggest looking into improvements to the algorithm, instead of brutally stripping away content at books to fit an unnecessarily crude model?