Really? That's what we're down to? Save the publishers because they're the only ones who can find good editors? That's another arrangement that sucks for everyone --- the readers, the writers, and the editors --- except for the publishers.

This strikes me as the same as saying "save the newspapers, they're the only ones who can run classified ads!". Except, the newspapers do other stuff. What else do the publishers do?

The arrangement we have today made a lot more sense when books lived or died on the retail channel, to which access was a scarcity acquired and allocated ("curated", to use their words) by the publishers. But that world is gone. My grandkids will look at bookstores like soda shops: historical curiosities. There's value in curation, too, but when it isn't backed by the scarcity of access to bookstore shelves, it's not enough value to justify the middleman role.

Judging by the deplorable quality of the editing and cover illustrations on many Kindle books, I question whether the traditional publishers are adding anything of value. Oftentimes it's obvious that the cover illustration was tossed together in Photoshop or Illustrator in an afternoon, and the editing wouldn't pass muster in a freshman composition class. Sometimes it doesn't look like they've even bothered to run the spell-checker.

Why would editing, cover art, etc. be something that can be best done by a middleman though?

It seems more logical to me to see this as a service provided by separate agencies, paid for by either the author or the publisher. Such agencies could be of various sizes and compete on price or a reputation for quality work.