Novels - Word Count and Pages

Reader trends have been changing now more people are reading using e-reader devices. When I first began writing, agents and publishers required a novel with approximately 85,000 words. Unfortunately, what I've found in many books is that the story is padded. Needless information and what is often called data dump gives the reader pages of backstory and history that is unnecessary to enhance the story, but satisfies the publisher (usually not the reader who often skips those pages).
Now many authors are self publishing, they can choose their novel length and word count which is changing from industry standard. Readers are flocking to shorter books that are more than a novella (20,000 to 50,000 words), but less than a novel (50,000 to 110,000 words). Cozy mysteries in particular are more the length of the YA novel (50,000 words or approx. 175 printed pages).
You can read a list of categories and word count here

What are your thoughts on novel length?
Do you prefer to read a story quickly (150-175 pages) or prefer 400+ pages.

Shorter Books

I stumbled across a web site called The Lazy Reader's Book Club today. It's a site for books with 250 pages or less geared toward people who like to read, but with little time. It's a good go-to place for book reviews if you're looking for a shorter read. 
It seems that along with e-books has come a quest for less lengthy novels and shorter books have more appeal these days. Amazon has introduced Kindle Singles which offers books of around 10,000 to 30,000 words (approx. 30-90 pages of a printed book). 

Typical book word count
Novel 50,000 words or more
Novella 20,000 to 50,000
Novelette 7,500 to 20,000
Short Story - 1,000 to 7,499
Flash Fiction - 100 to 1,000 

I've found that publishing houses require 75,000 - 80,000 minimum word count for a novel  (depending on the publishing house). But romance novels, such as Harlequin novels, usually run around 55,000 to 65,000 words as are cozy mysteries. 

Word count per genre here.

Some of the recent changes have come about because of e-readers. Who wants to read War and Peace (580,000 words) on a SmartPhone?

My last book, Gwinnel Gardens, is around 150 pages and around 50,000 words. My next two novels (due for publication in February) are both of similar length. None of my books are over 250 pages.

 The Cozy Mystery Blog has a post on lengthier novels with lots of "fluff" here

What are your thoughts on shorter novels?