Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Ah, that is quite interesting. I wonder how many people would take advantage of having a static copy of Wikipedia articles. That will then change on them almost as soon as they're printed. As you mentioned, the big encyclopedia drawback is that with time, your information becomes riddled with the needs of cross-references to the point where you have to scrap it and start again. Electronic, subscription-based stuff updates automatically. Although then you don't actually own the stuff, so it disappears if you stop subscribing...