I'm currently in the process of getting rid of all my plastic jewel cases and agree with op, it should not be the default, there's better ways. If there's a market for plastic they could just sell collector's editions or package it in such a way that it's easy to use your own jewel cases, but I'd prefer a less wasteful default. Steelbook blu rays are on the right track in the collectables regard although they still use more plastic on the inside than I'd like.