Jesus Christ that was obnoxious. I recall back then buying some DVD's and then pirating the movie so I didn't have to sit through that nonsense. There's no hard and fast rules about it, but today it's even more relevant - if you pay good money for a product, you shouldn't have to sit through the ads.
Plays any region? Check Plays VCD's? Check Plays DVD-R's/CD-R's? Check Plays MP3's burned to a CD/DVD? Check
The price difference was huge IIRC, like 80-100 less. All this while supporting all the fancier DVD features.