I liked my "custom" made textbook for my grad course of study (which was a new program both for the school and the "world") as it was about the development of the course to that point, written when it was only 2-3 years old, how it was created, rationale behind it, etc. It was quite interesting (but this was in a distance education program).

But I think if they have a lot of experts at your school, their writing a text is more interesting as you get to see individual interests, etc. You obviously haven't had many history courses :-) always at least 4 or more books. I like lots of books/articles as they give a better overall picture for me and I understand better in the end although at first it's more confusing for me until I begin to "get it" and relax some. Order out of chaos