Yes. HD is The Sexy. Even the difference between 480i and 720p (by far the most common HD resolution on current TVs, and likely to be the standard for some time, due to the price of proper 1080i/p sets) is enormous.
Well... There's also the fact that Anamorphic DVDs don't have square pixels. When mapped to be square (for computer monitors) they have a width of 864 pixels. However, the source is actually only 720 pixels wide. This would explain part of why the HD image resized down looks better. It has square pixels.
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan