You're an installer?
There is more to it than just not wanting to turn it on. DISH must pay EXTRA to broadcast the HD channel.
You know damn well that ESPN would rather DISH and you be paying a lot more to watch their precious ESPNU in awesome HD glory!
Therein lies the main problem. ESPN should be BEGGING Dish to carry all of their channels in HD, since there are many more every day that will skip on certain programming because it is in SD.
It shouldn't cost more to have the HD version as well. There should be a discount, but we all know that smart decisions take a back seat to bullying, money hungry tactics. :|