Am I the only one still surprised and disappointed that Apple, a forward-thinking company, still charges a premium for HD?
I don't know what Apple's contract w/ the content owners states, but do you? I am not being facetious, perhaps you have more explicit knowledge of the deals. I do know that content owners do generally demand a premium for HD content over SD. So this might just be one of those cases where Apple chooses not to pick a fight w/ content owners and let them have their way.
Also, to be fair to Apple, HD files are larger and there are bandwidth considerations. It does cost more for Apple to send and HD file to your device than the same title in SD.