I can't help feel that the recording companies have brought this on themselves. CDs don't wear out as vinyl discs did, and eventually, this had to happen.
Look at what they did when CDs first made their appearance -- they dug out every old recording they had around and "re-issued" them on CDs. Result, how many versions of Beethoven's Ninth, Tchaikowsky's first Piano Concerto, or Beethoven's Violin Concerto were there around? And who needed all of those?
We have long lived with the fact that classical recordings are only a small portion of the recording industry. Everything else plays to the riff-raff crowd. So it had to be expected that, sooner or later, the stalwarts would thin out. Who wants to play the Ninth on mp3?