Ebooks- the death of the book cover?

Charlie Brooker- a misanthrope for The Guardian feels that ebooks are the future and unavoidable. I'm a self-centered attention whore and would normally never dream of letting another writer set foot on my blog, here goes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/charlie-brooker-ebook-convert

Does not having a book cover mean no one will continue to judge books by their cover?
There's a reason why folks don't jump to the New England Journal of Medicine folks, there are no pictures. Even books that we don't consider picture books, like novels, have pictures. It's called cover art. Would we still even read these books if they didn't have a picture? What do you think?

(By the way, just admit you nearly skipped this blog because there were no pictures)

Big Girl by Danielle Steel

Can we talk about Danielle Steel for a minute? Wikepedia describes her as the 7th largest selling author, and according to her own personal website in the section entitled "About Danielle":
America reads Danielle Steel. And so does the rest of the world. There are more than 580 million copies of her books in print, and every one of her books is a bestseller. In short, Danielle Steel is the most popular author writing today. She is read by women, men, young people, old people in 47 countries and 28 languages.

Before I get into how awesomely hilarious it is that she divides her readers in 4 categories, I have immense respect for this person. She's lived the life of a character on Dallas or Dynasty. She was married five times and was the daughter of European socialites, and now lives in one of those gorgeous Victorian style houses in a hill in San Francisco somewhere. That also being said, I've never read any of her books which is odd considering I fit into at least two of the four mentioned categories. Maybe I'm not the right kind of woman or young person she is thinking of.
I remember seeing her books on friends' parents' bookshelves growing up and I'm just noting how different this book cover looks from her previous paperback covers. Her previous books show pictures of various body parts and abstract images, such as a hand, or house glowing with lights inside on a dark hill, or a rose. This current cover bears a definite semblance to the "chick-lit" style books of late. (I'm not implying that I had a literary snob's life growing up and that my parents read Marcel Proust in its original French; literally the only books on my parents shelves growing up were Tony Hillerman mysteries and the Holy Koran).
This cover art style is more in the line of The Nanny Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, anything by Candace Bushnell, etc. She is clearly trying to appeal to a specific demographic that has spelled "B.A.N.K." for various publishing houses. The demographic that features twenty-thirty something women trying to have a career, an awesome boyfriend or making that awesome boyfriend a husband and drinking cappuccinos and buying cool shoes.
So Mrs. Steel is trying to branch out and appeal to new people, or at least her marketing dept. is. So there. Anyway, it doesn't matter what I say because it's going to be another best-seller, like all of her books have been since 1981.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

Keeping with our aviary theme, this book cover also has a bird on it. At first I thought of the ballet, Swan Lake, because of the way the woman's feet are pointed. Then I thought, hey, there is too much symbolism going on here, especially with swans. Like the Zeus legend of Leda and the swan, where he turns himself into a swan and he gets this girl Leda pregnant. How sneaky is that? I would be pissed at this guy. This has to be the reason they have a swan and a pair of lady legs on the cover, this is obviously sexual. She even has a pair of guy's jeans entwined around her legs.

Also, I like how the cover has the words, "a novel" written on it in cursive so that it looks like a part of the artwork. It's like the artist was anticipating whoever is holding the book would forget they're reading one.

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

I like to think that these birds are strategically placed. I get it, I really do, the cover is meant to be haunting and create intrigue. There are the blackbirds/ravens (okay, you can't really tell if they're those types of birds, or if they're just far away or have the sun on their left side casting a shadow on the birds' right side) that are typically omens of doom and are foreboding. Remember the birds from that movie "The Birds?" There was a kickass scene where all the birds are gradually congregating on the jungle gym outside of the schoolyard and Tippi Hedren tells the teacher and they all get the kids to take them home? But as soon as they start running the birds just haul ass and go apeshit?
It's like that, that's what the book cover reminds me of.
On the other hand, there is the image of freedom that the birds flying away represent. Birds being released and flying off has been used so many times to represent it, it isn't even funny- like the doves being released at the Olympics or when Princess Jasmine from the Disney animated film "Aladdin" releases the birds from their cage (y'know, 'cause Jasmine's like a caged bird!).
While we're at it, check out the bird on the lowest, left-most corner. What is that, two birds stuck together? A pelican? A mutant bird with two sets of wings?