SciFi has big some shows in HD. I wouldnt dismiss this. And besides, the upresed version would look a lot better than what we're getting now. D* getting these stations (even uprezed) would have me strongly consider switching if I was not in contract.
Yes SciFi has a lot of shows that are shown later on Universal HD in HD. But, that does not do DIRECTV (or Dish) any good if they do not have an HD feed uplinked somewhere for DIRECTV to retransmit. Yes standard definition can look good when not compressed, but it will still be standard definition until SciFi actually provides an HD signal.