To Mike: The Book was talking about a scam being run latly where some crook steals pics of cues off the net and posts them on E-bay, they don't have the cue, they just steal the picture and pretend to have it, when the cue sells they collect the cash and of course can't send the cue because they only have pics of it and not the real cue.
To Shorty: Wood/ wood joints are perfectly fine, they don't wear down and they don't fail with proper care and if you know how to screw 2 things together. Your problems may have had more to do with the cue maker then the style of joint. I have a W2W joint that has been screwed 30,000 X + and it's still as good as the day it was made, sure it's a bit easier to screw together then it was 24 years ago, but it's far from failing.
Jim