Yeah, but the difference is that they actually did change those. ATV hasn't seen a hardware upgrade since it was released, with the exception of a drive swap. It's not so much that what it can do isn't useful, it's that the platform can clearly do about 1000 more things, and we're not being given them.
Want an example? Here's a feature that would instantly catapult the ATV from "meh" to "get one right now". AirDisk support. That's right, the same software that lets you use your DVD on the MacBook Air could be used to allow the ATV to become a DVD player. And just for fun, allow it to support the external DVD through the USB.
I think one of the reasons that the ATV doesn't sell as well as it should is because it becomes "one more limited source" in the AV stack. But if the ATV was the center of that stack instead, then it seems more interesting. One of those inputs is going to be DVD, and it seems like AirDisk is a great way to eliminate that.
Maury