There are often blog posts and message on mailing lists from people saying how much they hate page turning applications. The general vibe from digital natives is negative, however from the general population it's the opposite. In a similar way you may have problems getting a huge coffee fan to drink instant coffee, or Jeremy Clarkson to drive a Ford Modeo.
I would also like to point out the iceberg below the page turning front end. Myself and Tom had nothing to do with the front end, the system running it, PDF text extraction, detailed analytics and stats is where we do our thang... Anyway this was my response as I tried to enlighten them to how despite all the hating, it's a platform that works...
Digital magazines are never going to get a rave review from tech savvy people such as your selves.
They are aimed at people that don't use the web as much as the sort of people on this mailing list, and lets face it those sort of people are in the majority.
The reason it works for these people is mainly because its a, "match between system and the real world", which as I'm sure you aware is the second of Jokob's ten usability Heuristics.
At the last report Monkey magazine had a ABCE audited readership of about 250,000 uniques, so it clearly has the audience.
As a publishing platform these systems allow for a PDF to be converted into these swfs, with text extracted on the way, that text is then often delivered under the magazine, allowing for low level accessibility and providing spider food for search engines.
One route is a direct copy of print media, which doesn't work well as text sizes are often too small, but in the case of a magazine like http://www.shortlist.com/ they had a way to get all of their content online for launch without any hassle, allowing readers that missed the print copy to get their fix online.
A better approach is to create content specifically for the format, which for most clients (traditional publishers) is something VERY alien. However it's a great way for them to get into the digital arena, and something Dennis have used to create a digital team, which can then take them forward and provide content for the more techy people such as yourselves.
The main advantages of a digital magazine, is the encasement of content that you don't often fine elsewhere on the web. Whilst it's a great that blogs and websites update hourly, it buries content from the laymen. Take engadget, there are hundreds of posts a day... how many average people could keep up to date on gadgets like that without missing something? Not many, but reading iGizmo (excuse the name) every two weeks gives you everything important that's happened, with a start, middle and end. Not only that but it has professional editors, and video content in the pages without having to jump all over the web, getting lost along the way. http://www.igizmomag.co.uk/
For advertisers, digital magazines offer something unique. An environment that not only allows, but expects full or half page adverts, plus they are in an already interactive environment so you know the users is engaged and therefore far more likely to interact. Check out this advert for Carlsberg which got an amazing response http://dennis.cerosmedia.com/1M46ee4f7816e87012.cde/page/4 The obvious easy win is the use of film trailers, something that works so well, with little need to change your print ad.
More examples can be found here: http://www.cerosmedia.com/links/titles/
I hope this gives some of you more understanding of the platform and where it sits, but I don't expect any of you will like it any more ;)