The question that has underlain my work is, quite simply, "Why Hypertext?"
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If we are going to throw literature classes, citations, and even reviews into mass confusion (no more turning to page 21), we'd better have a good reason why. If we are going to ask readers to take an active role in searching for text, making connections, understanding links, and finding structure, we'd better make the trip pay off. If we could get what we were looking for in a simple, straight-forward text, we'd be crazy to spend about ten times the effort to plan, write, link, and program a hypertext.
Deena Larson, 1999. Ran across it while doing some random research tonight. Nearly twenty years later, it's still an open question.