It's beyond the comprehension of mere mortals to understand the difficulty in making the spines match up 
It is indeed, nuts.
Having said that, I recently completed my run of Case Files, and on sticking them on my shelf I thought it might bug me that they are all so misaligned. But, do you know, it doesn't. In fact it annoys me more that the last two I had to get (12 and 13) are more-or-less matching. Somehow it doesn't look right to have that oasis of calm in the middle of a turbulent sea of crazy up and downiness.
What bugs me more is that they changed the spine design (badge in the 'u' of Dredd, reverse colours) with volume eleven- knowing, surely, that volume eleven would be the last of the fat ones before it all went thinny with twelve. Now, I know that doing the colours and design in batches of ten, and sticking with it over volumes 11-20, is a great idea... but ARGH! that sticky-outy volume eleven annoys. Could they not have done it in batches of eleven, making volume eleven purple or something, with the "old" spine design, then giving us 12-21 (the thin ones) as the "new" design? The bouncy writing is NOTHING compared to that. NOTHING I tell you.
SBT