That is "why are they there to begin with"?

Looking at it today, with two candidates vying to split the vote, they seem like horribly un-democratic things...

But unless I'm mistaken, they were created after a democratic convention that went round after round after round before finally ending up with a candidate... and the whole telivised show of the democratic convention was a squabling debate. That year McGovern lost BADLY. But the problem wasn't McGovern... it was the complete bedlam of the convention... what is supposed to be a national introduction to the party nominee and platform was a 5-way battle royal, with no clear party leadership and no clear direction... It ruined the democratic party for years.

So they brought in some power to act as mediators in the case of a primary season that didn't produce a clear winner... but they were envisioning a multiple candidate situation. When the highest vote-getting candidate recieved only ~30% of the vote and there's 4 candidates splitting delegates, it makes sense to have someone act as a decider... unless you want to hold a runoff primary (ugh...). But the superdelegates were not intended to mitigate a situation like this. There are two delegates left... one of them will clearly win over the other among the electorate... That being the case, the superdelegates will be usurping an authority that had never been intended for them if they choose to over-rule the will of the people.

The unaffiliated party leaders (Dean, Gore, Pelosi, Reid, Carter, and others) should encourage the superdelegates to each pledge - here and now - that they will follow either the national popular vote or the pledged delegate vote.

The democratic party should also raise money to fund a do-over primary in Florida and Michigan.

The issue of the superdelegate vote CANNOT wait to be seen as a back-room deal... that will kill the democratic party chances in the fall... and regardless of the rhetoric that kind of back-room deal was simply not what the superdelegates were empowered for.