"The internet is a slowly but surely destructive thing in all ways."

[Miles Archer]

5. Dick's Picks / Road Trips / Dave's Picks / MASSIVE "Europe 72" and other box sets...

...the Dead's audience lines up to purchase all of these. They issue them in limited editions, most are sold out before the actual date they ship.

So you are 100% spot-on with your observations.

Napster / Bearshare / Limewire basically grew out of a buying public sick and tired of going to Tower Records and paying $20 for a CD with one or two songs and a sprinkling of filler.

These days it's streaming, torrents and Usenet, but I think most music fans will still pay for legal copies of quality music. It's just that the trust level has eroded. People want to hear it first. There will always be people who just want to steal a copy for free, but I don't think that represents a true fan base at all.