As to CSR knowledge of impending stuff, Sometimes they do know and sometimes they don't.
I have no connection to Dish whatever other than being a customer, and I am about 90% certain through contacts in the racing and programming/advertising community that Dish will carry Speed HD within a week of Launch in February. D* and E* might be the ONLY places one can get Speed in HD for a considerable time, and I would expect with the tie ins with NASCAR and all that it would be silly for E* not to carry Speed HD on launch and it would be silly for them not to heavily promote that fact.
So I can believe they would want their CSRs to be able to answer that question affirmatively.
Also consider that Dish was an early adopter of sister channels National Geographic HD (long before D*) and Big Ten Network and early adoption of Speed HD makes sense (all three are either distributed or outright owned by Fox).
I have another story about CSR precognition, although the dates escape me. I was calling about pricing options for a second receiver and I asked about Comcast SportsNet Chicago HD, and she told me it would be launched in the next batch of channels (might have been either the TBS launch of the History channel, or Big Ten Network, I don't recall). Anyway, she was right.
She was also very straightforward about plans for local channels in HD other than the Big four networks. Essentially, the answer there was "Don't hold your breath" unless congress or the FCC mandates PBS carriage.
This was helpful because if pushed me off the couch and onto the roof to install an antenna. By the way, PBS over the air HD is stunning for most things.