Why does research still bother with print?

Having spent the past two days revising a peer-reviewed research paper, I wonder – why do scholarly journals still bother with print? How hopelessly outdated is the stylesheet? Who still reads print when you have digital libraries and Google books? Why can’t we use mark-up language or content management systems to upload, manage and publish peer-reviewed research? Are lay-out instructions like these not incredibly arcane?

for data transcripts with line numbers rather than turn numbers: max 60 characters per line (including spaces)

I cannot wait for academic publishing to go online. Memo to self: read this post, subscribe to this site, learn about Herbert Van de Sompel‘s work, discuss the issue with faculty members and colleagues.