professorhat: Joel, I think what you're not understanding is there are people (like myself) who watch films as much as you listen to music. So the same argument you use for buying CDs works on buying DVDs / Blu-Rays and the systems to make the most of them.
If you can think of it that way, you can probably at least empathise as to why we love it, even if you can't understand it personally.
I think that's a great point.
My brother in law has a 37" LG LCD, and a £199 home cinema in a box type thing. He considers his system to be superior to mine, as mine 'isn't even surround sound'! My mate, who's heavily into car stereo systems, can't understand why I've spent all this money on a system with 'just two speakers' and 'not that much bass'. They're both eejits, obviously, but still...
I constantly read threads on PC forums from people wanting their music to come through every cheap 7.1 speaker that's attatched to their computer. It's their preference, and they're obviously entitled to do whatever makes them happy, but I don't think they're motivated by all-out quality.
I think people comparing DVD with Blu-Ray and thinking there's not much of a difference is similar to people comparing compressed MP3 to lossless or CD. We appreciate the difference, though not everyone would. Just as many folk can't tell the difference vetween compressed and uncompressed music, those that don't have much passion for video may not appreciate the benefits of Blu Ray.
I've had a few decent DVD players, and I'm quite keen to add an Arcam to my system as I don't believe all this 'PS3 is the best upscaler EVER' stuff, so I'd rather have a decent player for the SD DVD's that I own. But I've no interest in buying any more DVD's, as I've not seen a DVD player yet that isn't comfortably outperfomed by a PS3 playing Blu-Ray. Even my 360 HD-DVD player is leagues ahead of my either my PS3 or DVD recorder playing DVD's.
I mean, even my missus thinks there's a big difference, and that's saying something. As such, I'll have to suffer the Sex and the City movie Blu-Ray at the weekend. So there are some drawbacks...