I get what you are saying.

What I am saying is that even if you don't tape it, you are going to wear material away from the edge far more quickly than the material on the spine so you aren't really gaining anything know what I mean?

My friendly argument is, that the effect you are talking about in your above post is going to happen whether you tape the spine or not. It might happen faster if you tape it, but the difference would be negligable, and over a pretty large span of time imo. Great thread.