In my air platen experiments I used Teflon sheets to engage the book in the gutter at the top and bottom of the page. The Teflon was to encourage the paper to slide up and out of the way. I used Velcro to hold two adjustable strips of metal that each engaged the edge of the page furthest from the spine. The result was unsatisfactory because I spent a lot of time smoothing/tucking paper underneath the metal. If I didn't, gravity and friction would bunch up the pages. And the tucking caused the strips to move.In my imagination, I have this device that drops a post-it wrapped "sausage" on the edge of the page, then rolls it a bit, so the weight holds the pages down...
Now, let's suppose we replace the strips of metal with Tom's post-it "sausages" (or rubber rollers taken from a dead printer), and a knob on each "sausage's" axle allowing the operator to turn the "sausage" slightly to engage the paper and tug it a little bit out of the gutter. This should improve air platen performance.
Does anyone think this worthy of further experiment?