It all comes down to recognizing the overshoot point for a market...
HDTV and HD video adoption rates have been atrociously low, to the point that firms manufacturing HDTV sets have actually gotten the US government to intervene in order to push sales. In business, we call that a "red flag". See, if your product doesn't sell unless it's forced into being the standard by government decree, that means that your product is not wanted. Forcing people to adopt something they don't want doesn't work for very long; eventually an alternative comes along which people flock to, and the market forcing users to upgrade collapses.
The short of it: HD overshoots the market so badly that forced adoption is the only way it can become a standard. Meaning it's so precarious that all it would take is a simple alternative to completely collapse said market or reduce it to a severe niche. Now why would you make support for this format a standard feature, with that in mind?
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
