Ebooks started as a wholesale pricing model. The publishers would sell them to the likes of Amazon at some fixed price. Amazon would then set their own price. This is very similar to the brick-and-mortar pricing model. In some cases Amazon would sell those books at a loss in an effort to grow the Kindle platform.
Publishers didn't like this system because they saw cheap prices as devaluing their content. Publishers are also caught in a backwards mindset where they think if the physical book costs $25 then the ebook should cost $25 even though the latter has no printing or distribution costs.
What's more, even if those costs were the same, ebooks should still cost less because there is no resale market, a fact that digital content publishers seem to ignore.
But Apple's iBooks came along and not only gave the publishers what they want, they required it. And that is the agency model, which allows the publishers to set the price, a move I argue is anticompetitive.
This put Amazon under pressure and the publishers got their way so the pricing is now largely out of Amazon's hands (sadly).
Review bombing is an interesting tactic, one I actually support if done for the right reasons. It was done on the PC game Spore for its ridiculous DRM (initially a limit of 2 (?) activations before EA relented).
What publishers--and in fact all digital content producers--are doing with pricing and DRM is beyond a joke. Sadly the Obama administration (the DoJ in particular) is filling with ex-RIAA lawyers so you know which way the wind is blowing there.
At the same time we have the RIAA/MPAA behind closed doors (with the government as willing accomplices) trying to equate downloading a song with terrorism (eg ACTA) in terms of enforcement priorities.