Today's Guardian reports the attempted suicide bombings at UK airports under the headline ' A plot to commit murder on an unimaginable scale' . Any attempt to take human life is abhorrent, and thank heavens the alleged plot was foiled. But let us not forget that killing on an unimaginable scale by aircraft is not the monopoly of any one ideoology. ' As German fuel supplies dwindled in the autumn of 1944 and into the final months of the war, aircraft were grounded, tanks halted, training for replacement pilots could not be maintained, and most of the new and highly effective Messerschmitt 262 jet-fighter aircraft (photo above), of which over 1,200 had been produced by the end of 1944 and which might have considerably prolonged the war, had neither fuel to fly nor trained pilots to fly them. The ME 262s were anyway extremely fuel-hungry aircraft, and those that went into action had to be towed to their end of their runways to conserve fuel, cows were used to do the towin
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I agree with just about everything you say. This is undoubtedly conditioned by my own experience, having started collecting at university in about 1964, when your choice was LPs ... or LPs. I've never viewed streaming as anything other than a substitute for listening to FM, with 2 modes - listening to a particular program which interested me (a broadcast of unfamiliar material, for example) or something for casual listening (there are a couple of internet radio stations which play excellent jazz playlists ideal for late evening listening).
I still listen to LP's, and buy a few out of curiosity. I have enough CDs that convenient storage space for LPs and CDs is becoming a problem. This leads to my one differing perspective from your post. I find that downloads have an increasing part to play, with mobility not being a necessary component. Disclaimer - I speak only for myself, of course, and if I started buying LPs in 1964, I'm clearly not in what you'd call a growth demographic.
Downloads don't replace the well-designed and elegant packages you mention (Jordi Savall et al). However, in a lot of cases, I find myself buying downloads rather than CD's. I'm talking particularly about companies who provide the same documentation with each (Hyperion and Linn, to mention only 2). I've even succumbed to the lure of a digital streamer which includes a CD player, and so all sources other than LP's are played through the same unit.
Downloads have some other (minority) advantages. Example - my downloaded music sits on a network-attached drive, and I can give a friend access to muic which they'd particularly like to hear. I can also access it from outside the home ("mobility", if you will), but that's a very minor item for me.
An aside - as I'm sure you know, the elegantly packaged "theme" set of CDs is not all that new. I'm looking at my copy of the slipcased 2000 Columbia/Legacy issue titled "Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings." Four CDs, an extensive photo gallery, excellent essays, production credits - this is certainly not something where a download would be an adequate substitute.
And other more recent examples would include the DGG Bach Passion sets.
Collectable? Absolutely. I'd just put a bit more emphasis on downloads than I think you would. But why agree on everything? That would be dull ...
My big concern is that as the peripheral players such as Qobuz fall by the wayside, a few corporate giants such as Amazon and Apple will not only dominate the distribution of classical music, but also invest in content ownership. Which means that when Len Blavatnik grows bored with playing at being a record company mogul the EMI catalogue - and much more - could well end up being owned by Amazon - http://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/02/do-we-need-international-cultural.html