iPod Whats the deal with album art size?

[RiseAgainst]

I normally make all my album art 175px square. It looks great when you have the art pane showing in the Soure menu. I don't get why when you click on the art to open it up iTunes feels the need to upscale the image. Why is this happening and is there any way to stop it? I just want to click on the art and have the image at its normal size be displayed.

 

[Sedulous]

I'm fairly certain if you click the green button it resizes to actual size. After that (mine at least) they stay that size.