06-17-08: Tgrisham
In the future, bands will only release online, by download. ... I downloaded a sampler from HDTracks. The quality is excellent. They will soon have 96KHz/24 bit downloads, DRM free. If you want a hard copy, burn a disc.
If they start getting the writers and graphics artists involved, they could offer a pdf of cover art and liner notes and recapture something we've lost from the LP days.
That arrangement would be the best of both. I like the sound of 24/96 or 24/88.4 as MLP on my humble Oppo DV-980H. I can't abide 16/44.1, but 24-bit dynamic resolution and 88K or 96K sampling I can live with.
Besides near infinite resolution of LPs, their other big advantage was the visual experience. CDs shrunk that to illegible miniaturization, and downloads eliminated it. If you added in quality commentary and graphics to accompany hi-rez downloads, you could approximate the album experience with the download advantages of portability and robustness.