I think that technology is great and pdfs and downloads are great ways of being introduced to new rules or getting hold of those long oop; however my personal preference for rules is printed media.
In the same way that I appreciate the convenience of accessing music on my ipod but I would prefer to listen to CDs or vinyl.
Hard copy artwork is so much better to own too
Slightly outside this thread but related is the ability to review actual gameplay of rules on somewhere like youtube. After pondering on a WWII ruleset I recently watched a series of videos on Chain of Command on which over a number of episodes showed a complete game; this convinced me that these were something I could work with and I subsequently purchased the rule book at Salute.