I've got a Nook Simple Touch for reading the black & white books, which I like a lot as it's much lighter than the first gen and is way better on my hands than my original Sony. The contrast has never really been much of an issue for me, though. I'm not sure it's exactly like reading on paper, though the contrast definitely has improved since early e-ink screens. I think the Kindle is supposedly better as far as contrast goes, from reviews I read.
My current Nook is incredibly light and has nice ergonomics to hold one-handed or two, so I'm actually enjoying it more than a physical book at this point. But flipping around isn't terrible, actually, sometimes easier than a paper book? Since there's search features, and you can bookmark pages you want to get back to, and jumping ahead to a new chapter or a particular page number is pretty simple, and I don't find the lag to be terrible. But if you mean like, flipping back and forth between two pages for referencing, I could see the lag getting annoying.
As far as syncing goes, I've actually rooted my Nook so that it also runs regular Android in the background, which allows me to not only easily sync my BN.com book library, but also what I happen to have on Kindle and use things like Dropbox/Aldiko sync and Overdrive (for library books) to sync other books without me even having to plug the thing to my computer. (Google Books installs, but I have yet to get it to really work for me, so I don't know.) So I do really love that the newer generations have wi-fi for that reason, since I have trouble remembering to sync it, too.
I'm not sure it does a lot for whittling down the library I had, since I have offloaded several boxes of books, but mostly they were books I read once and knew I didn't need or want around to reference anymore, and like you mentioned, a lot of the books I had were older, and I can't find ebook versions (yet). But it does remind me to not buy paper books unless there's a real reason I want the paper version (or it's unavailable otherwise), which I think has helped me actually keep the number down as when I find books I like enough to buy, I check for ebook versions first these days.
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My current Nook is incredibly light and has nice ergonomics to hold one-handed or two, so I'm actually enjoying it more than a physical book at this point. But flipping around isn't terrible, actually, sometimes easier than a paper book? Since there's search features, and you can bookmark pages you want to get back to, and jumping ahead to a new chapter or a particular page number is pretty simple, and I don't find the lag to be terrible. But if you mean like, flipping back and forth between two pages for referencing, I could see the lag getting annoying.
As far as syncing goes, I've actually rooted my Nook so that it also runs regular Android in the background, which allows me to not only easily sync my BN.com book library, but also what I happen to have on Kindle and use things like Dropbox/Aldiko sync and Overdrive (for library books) to sync other books without me even having to plug the thing to my computer. (Google Books installs, but I have yet to get it to really work for me, so I don't know.) So I do really love that the newer generations have wi-fi for that reason, since I have trouble remembering to sync it, too.
I'm not sure it does a lot for whittling down the library I had, since I have offloaded several boxes of books, but mostly they were books I read once and knew I didn't need or want around to reference anymore, and like you mentioned, a lot of the books I had were older, and I can't find ebook versions (yet). But it does remind me to not buy paper books unless there's a real reason I want the paper version (or it's unavailable otherwise), which I think has helped me actually keep the number down as when I find books I like enough to buy, I check for ebook versions first these days.