I agree! Obviously printing has had a role to play. While I have strong views (you may have noticed!) about the situation today, the 20th century was a different time. I don’t so much have a problem with choices done then, but with how things have adapted (or not) in the present.
As hinted at in your last sentence, there’s really no relation between copyright and selling material. Think about water. There’s no copyright on water, and it’s available everywhere, but people still spend millions to buy the bottled stuff. Why? Well, a variety of reasons, be it real or perceived quality, convenience, and so on.
Making texts available free of copyright does not mean you can’t sell them. In fact, the most relevant studies I have seen show little or no relation between availability online and book sales (the stronger correlation is with citation: making texts available freely means they are more widely read and have more influence). And this is, presumably, for exactly the reasons you mention.
If you remove copyright, it simply means that if someone copies the text, you can’t take them to court. That’s it. You can still ask people to not copy them, or to restrict copying in certain forms or whatever. But it is a polite request, not a legal requirement. How is it enforced? By the power of public opinion. Anyone who starts using texts in unethical ways—say by misattributing sources for financial gain—will be soon outed by the community.
Our plans here are evolving, but we are currently having certain books printed for free distribution with Budaedu in Taiwan. These will become available worldwide, and as time goes on there will be more and more of them. They produce excellent quality books, and our texts will be cloth bound Smyth-sewn hardcover, i.e. as good as it gets for normal book production.
In addition, we have a longer term plan to produce books ourselves. These will use even higher quality production, which will be second to none anywhere in the book industry. Most likely we’ll cover production costs by donation, and make the books available at cost of postage only on the internet. This is especially for those in “far-flung regions”!