Being in the printing business, I would agree that controlling distribution (and Tim's "equity") of a pdf would be difficult.
Re the printing - there are good quality digital printers, but quality is relative, from just having good saturation (crowd pleasing) to actually matching a known standard. A good printer might show relative color differences between sample illustrations, but none might look like it is intended, which, I think would be Tim's concern. This goes to color management profiles, which can be unique to each printer. The separations in Tim's digital master likely support the profile of the original printer (if color management was even used at the time of the original press run), and another printer might not output the same way (different color gamuts, reproduction curves, etc.) This is also an issue with pdf's viewed on hundreds of computer displays. It might be like giving a delicate cake recipe to two different bakers, with instructions, and expecting identical results from both kitchens - different ovens, raw materials (inks..) - you get the idea.
Part of the project of another printing with a different printer ("output device", as it is known in color management speak), would be tweaking all the separations to make them look like the original printing, if I read correctly Tim's comment about color fidelity.
