Something a little strange - most official anamorphic dvds do not reach their potential anyways. Studios apply detail reduction to the video image to help with the compression. A while ago, I converted an HD quicktime movie to a dvd file. The video was a trailer for Terrence Malick's The New World. I used the high quality lanczos setting to resize the video to the standard dvd resolution. Anyways, when I watched my transfer of the trailer over an HD projector projecting onto a 106" diagonal screen, the video quality was amazing. It looked very close to HD. Later when I watched the official New Line dvd on the projector, the image wasn't nearly as sharp or vibrant. To say the least, comparing the footage was an interesting experience.

Anyways, it makes sense that a studio's official non-anamorphic dvd wouldn't look too bad when compared to the official anamophic release. Even the best anamorphic releases are usually handicapped with detail reduction and small edge enhancement halos.

Edit - yeah, anamorphic releases are better - especially for 2.35:1 films. I was just trying to make myself feel better. These are some sad times.