The sad thing is that SD does not need to be unwatchable. SD is basically the same resolution as DVD's. But, Dish (as well as DirecTV and some cableco's) compress the living crap out of them and reduce the bit rate, in order to conserve bandwidth. It's even worse with the local channels, where they need to cram a shipload of channels into spotbeam TP's.
Plus, they keep dumbing down the PQ of the HD channels, as well. Some day, it will be the equivalent of HQ SD. But, nobody will realize it, as the few SD channels left will look like crap in comparison, and nobody will remember what unadulterated SD or HD used to look like.