As a personal advice - let me tell you this - If our interest is in spreading this novel to many people then an eVersion of this book is a MUST, So please don't wait for the poll results or the people to respond to you by email - our vision should be beyond this group - the tamil eCommunity today and tomorrow.
As Mr. N Seshadri has put it correctly - share the work with five or six volunteers and each one can take a baagam and start typing. Once it is finished, we can publish it as a serial / as an eBook downloadable from this site, This way we will also get time for pictures,
Scanning them is a HUGE task I agree, But if it is done - it will be preserved for the future, already I am seeing less number of bound volumes of PS with maniam / ma. se. pictures :-( Padmavaasan did good in the latest version that came in Kalki recently - even that can be archived. (I hear Padmavasan draws in his PC directly - if somebody can contact him, may be we will get a puthaiyal without much efforts :-)