Having the pubs in digital form is great - especially for planning purposes. It would save initial production and distribution costs but at some point you will still need it in the physical form. If you've tailored the information for a particular operation, what do you do when you need to divert or your mission changes in-flight? What will you use when you've lost electrics or the FMS has failed? I suggest that some type of physical document will always be required.
john_t If you want to truly embrace technology, why not go all the way and have a print on demand service where you log-on to download the latest version of AIP or ERSA with all amendments incorporated. If you do this though, what is the effective date? Is it the day the document was published on-line (as a .pdf file) or is it the day you print it off (print-on-demand)? This then raises another issue - the volatility of the digital information.
So in the end, it doesn't really matter in what form you distribute the publications. The problem is how often they are published and how are people notified of any amendments? If it's on-line in .pdf format, you'll still need to check NOTAMS for amendments. If its print-on-demand, you'll need to download it everytime you go flying.