Reaction to Beginning to Theorize Adaptation

Reading this section from the textbook there were a few quotes that stuck with me.  For example Robert Stam says "Literature will always have axiomatic superiority over any adaptation of it because of its senoiroity of an art form."  I find this to be very accurate, because just about anyone you ask of how the movie was that was based off of a book you will here the same thing generally, "the book was better."  I find this to be true because you can fit so much more information in a book then that of a movie or any other art form.  A movie is only a few hours long, a video game is only what technology we have at the time to create, and a comic book can only depict so much.  Yet with books there is so much to be said, details of environments, inner thoughts of characters, in depth descriptions of actions taking place, and it is up to the reader of how it is pictured in their own head, something unique to books.
Another statement or rather question that stuck with me was "If adaptations are by definition, such inferior and secondary creations, why then are they so omnipresent in our culture and, indeed, increasingly steadily in numbers?"  And the best answer that I can think of for this is money, money is just about always what it boils down to.  As stated in the reading, you may have a book that sells over a million copies but a movie adaptation will more than likely reach millions upon millions of viewers worldwide.  I have no problem with a movie adapted from a book, I love movies and its cool to see actors I like portraying a character I liked in a book.  In a sense it is preserving art, you can have a classic novel that maybe not everyone has read, but a movie that was adapted from it that does well and is good is in a way preserving that classic novel.  I also like to see different directors interpretations of different novels, for example Dracula has been adapted since the start of film and still has adaptations today, in that sense of the word adaptation I love it.  Yet when you have every popular film turned into a Broadway musical because they know that will sell, then I feel you've lost some of the original art.  Once art becomes purely for profit and not for art itself, then one cannot call it art.
One thing I love in particular is when an adaptation is not done directly as it was written in the book such as Lord of the Rings but rather indirectly such as O'Brother Where Art Thou by the Coen Brothers.  It is adapted from the Iliad and the Odyssey, but instead of the Greek epic it follows 3 individuals around the 1900's.  It in it's own way depicts a lot of the same characters throughout the book but in its own creative way, and to me that is the version of adaptation that keeps art alive and new ideas emerging.