The two reasons publishers want higher ebook prices is a futile attempt to avoid cannibalizing (overpriced) print sales and to increase their own profit (you’ll notice an absence of taking care of authors as a motivation). I think siding with the Big Six publishers, as Scott Turow and the Authors Guild have done, is not in authors’ interests.

Keep an open mind and be careful about aligning your interests as an author with the vested interests of a dying publishing industry.

As for book events, I have done them at B&N stores in Bethesda and Rockville here in Maryland, and they all involved the traditional book talk plus signing. I have seen people (at Books-A-Million, I think) doing the sort of camping-out that you describe, and it seemed a pretty poor idea.

As for the world without B&N, it might not be so bad, but I tend to think it would be pretty bad. I believe that no more than 20% of the Borders locations have been “repurposed” as book stores (independents and the aforesaid Books-a-Million). A survey found that one-third of the people buying books at book stores had not intended to buy a book when they stopped in. That’s a lot of sales that might never happen if there are a lot fewer stores to stop in to.

My own (limited) experience of doing book events at Barnes & Noble stores has been disastrous. Their idea of a book event is an author standing near a table with a few books, talking to people as they walk by. This is one area in which independents, in my experience, are far far better.

If we imagine a world without Barnes & Noble, some of those spaces would become other book stores, and other book stores would be easier to start / maintain. But would it affect the overall $ spent by people on books? I doubt it, although it would probably accelerate the move from physical to electronic books.