While I have done my fair share of....umm...sourcing books in a questionable manner, I am, of late, more inclined to jump through hoops to get books that are not available due to archaic geographical restrictions. I do this not to support the publisher, but rather the author, even if their royalties are a pittance. At the same time I try and communicate with the author via their website to alert them of the restrictions.
I recently wanted the book "Monkey Mind", only to find it was restricted (although the Amazon site did not state geographical restriction - it simply said "not currently available". A live chat with Amazon customer service confirmed a restriction.). I was reluctantly willing to buy a physical copy, but it too hadn't been licensed for sale in SA, only available via import. I eventually bought the eBook using a VPN to dupe the Amazon site, but I also communicated with the author, Daniel Smith, who was completely unaware that the publisher had restricted the sale of his book like this, and followed up with his agent. While it doesn't change how his current book is sold, him being aware of this now allows him to negotiate better if he ever publishes another book.
Like the music industry, publishers are still set in their ways of doing business the 20th century way and are very reluctantly dipping their toe into the digital realm. That said, they are going to keep doing things that serve their best interest, not that of the authors, or the consumer. As authors are made aware of this (by us, unfortunately), they will be better equipped to put some pressure on the publishers.
Regarding the Kindle app, I've never been a big fan of it so I stick to iBooks. I use Calibre, with a few scripts, to remove the DRM and convert my Amazon books to ePub format.
