You will have to get used to it, in 2 years all analog broadcasts will be gone.

It is NOT true that digital is crap - Digital has GREAT potential..it is not used well.

Unfortunately, and like you said, in order to fit all those channels into the same cable they have to reduce the resolution and further compress. Don't confuse DVD quality with digital cable, digital cable uses a much lower resolution and a very high compression rate. Don't be surprised that some channels compress as low as 2 to 3mbit/s and to top it off the decoder boxes are CRAP quality. Remember, a high bit rate + a good encoder + good decoder = excellent picture. What is hype is when the cable company claims their digital cable is "DVD quality".

Hopefully when they FREE UP some space on the cable they will increase the bitrate and quality of their compression, but they cannot do that as long as they squeeze both analog and digital on the same coax.