This is definitely a hacky way to go. I just tried it with Matz’s Ruby book. Reading it with Stanza on OSX is just about the ugliest digital reading experience outside of scanned text.
It's an issue of using a subpar client, not a subpar format. I have yet to find a decent epub reader for a computer. Stanza for iPhone, iBooks, and dedicated hardware render epubs beautifully.
Oh well, it only set me back 5 bucks.