A good book for beginner/intermediate, and maybe even expert alike...

[orbiter]

If those are the only reasons then I guess It would be great if the labeling could move with the times as shafri suggested.

[Mechatrommer]

If those are the only reasons then I guess It would be great if the labeling could move with the times as shafri suggested.

hopes the manufacturers listen and the fellows engineers and scientists and let it remains in the history section of the textbooks.

[Feanor]

Resistors with numbers and not color coded rings do exist. I have some old Russian ones with the value and the tolerance on them. I have seen these in electronics surplus stores here in Australia as well. I was told that these were "military surplus".

I think it comes down to how much it costs to print numbers on as opposed to drawing lines. 

[logictom]

Thanks for the heads up, always useful to have more than a couple of books on a subject for that time when one's book explanation just won't sink in and another book describes it slightly different but makes it click.
A great site to get books from is www.abebooks.co.uk if you're in the uk or just .com for elsewhere, saved me quite a bit picking up second hand copies of books for uni.