I can definitely see them going back to books that are ~10 years old and giving them this treatment to milk them for more money.
But for new books, I think they'll just keep on screwing customers over with crazy price tags for physical copies. As long as it's a physical copy, customers will assume it's worth as much as they're charging... they see through that BS when it's a digital copy, as if ink and paper are hard to come by.
It's not about new books vs. old books. It's about good books vs. bad books. A new, gussied-up edition isn't going to resurrect a 10-year-old flop.
As far as I'm concerned, people place too much value on paper and ink. When paper and ink were removed from the equation (ebooks and online media), people expected to pay next to nothing for the
contents. The contents are all that matter. Either a book informs/entertains, or you have a pile of wood pulp (or wasted server resources). As with any form of entertainment or enlightenment, the public's willingness to pay the price is based on far more than the cost of paper, scenery, Internet bandwidth, or cushy seating.
The cost of printing and binding amount to 10%-12% of the list price of the typical book. Anyone who thinks eliminating 10% of the cost equates to a 50% (or greater) cut in price needs to invest in a good arithmetic textbook (and this is why, when Amazon introduced this perverse equation, the major publishers felt the need to band together).
It is up to the producer to ensure that, whatever the cover price/list price, the contents justify the price. Long term, nobody will spend $100 for a day at a theme park or a couple of hours at a Broadway theater if they consistently feel ripped off when they make their ways to the exit. If they consistently can't get past chapter one of a $29.95 "bestseller," they'll start spending that money on running shoes, board games, premium cable channels, kitchen accessories... whatever does manage to deliver adequate bang for their entertainment buck.
When you have a real winner on your hands, the same people will also pay to see the movie in IMAX, buy the DVD and/or pay-per-view, catch the Broadway musical, buy the cast album of the musical, see the movie version of the musical, gobble-up the video games, apps, action figures, and spin-off titles... add a hardcover collectors' edition to the shelf beside the crumbling paperback,
and buy an ebook for the sake of whatever has been added to it. Such books are very few and far between. If they are "milked," it's because the public is still thirsty.
