First class reader tools

In Sara Nelson's presentation given at O'Reilly Media Tools of Change Conference she notes that Publishers Weekly is using the Kindle as part of the process of reviewing galleys. I am really interested in this idea of using the Kindle as a review and commentary tool. When I was at Mesa Systems Guild, helping to build process management tools, one of the company's founders measured observations of DoD contractors and medical device manufactures was that for every 1 creator of content there were 40 readers of it. So, why do we 1) spend so much money on giving readers the same tools as writers but for reading? and 2) why don't we have first class reader tools?