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I hope the people at Paizo (the BEST RPG company in the business) have paid attention to the most prevalent complaint about the Core Rule Book: the fact that it is so big that it falls apart. How about making a high-quality binding option for those who want one? I'm not talking about one so fancy that you don't want to use it...like the deluxe Runelords release. I mean something along the lines of what Kenzer Co. did for the new Hackmaster rules. Check it out....HM PHB is easily the most beautiful and toughest RPG book ever published. Pathfinder deserves no less!
I'd happy pay $10 (or even $20) extra for a better binding -- but I suspect I'm in the minority. Paizo has to try to keep the buy-in price down.
Another oft-suggested alternative is to reinstate the PHB/DMG split of yore to decrease the strain on the binding, but that has been shot down as costing too much.
Still, I really wish they'd do one or the other. :)
The CRB is simply too unwieldy for me to use effectively; the quality of the binding is largely irrelevant compared to the size-issue. However, instead of a PHB/DMG split, I'd prefer a split that leaves all the spells and magic items in one book, and everything else in another.
(the unwieldy-ness of books that large also means I'll never buy other massive tomes, such as the Tome of Horrors Complete, in a physical form, despite vastly preferring physical books to PDFs)
The best option is probably the players guide/dmg split. The problem ofcourse is that there is a deceptively large cost in printing 2 new books even if you have all the content. Printing big books like that is the single largest expense of producing the book (hence why pdfs are 10 dollar and print books are 30-50). They would have to re-do all of that including layout and working out a contract with their printers.
As much as I want it, I dont expect it to happen unless they actually revamp the rules. As it is my second core book (i bought 2 originally and the first has since fallen apart) is starting to feel a little weak in the binding. Ive started using my kindle for reference at the table to reduce wear and tear on it. I would love to see a split up version of the core rules, but im not going to hold my breath.
One thing that may help, I store my CRB laying on its "back" (i.e. spine down) and sandwiched between my other hardbacks. It seems to help preserve it reasonably well.
One thing I do is to ask others using my books to not place one open book on top of another open book. I don't even do that. I also ask them not to use the pages of the open book as a writing pad. In other words don't write your character sheet on my open book.
Yes, I am a Grouchy Old Fart.