The problem is that they're a niche market thing. I actually did see classic Shalom's Chanukah special that one time at Best Buy and sometimes at Barnes and Nobel stores that still sell DVD's. Wal*Mart wouldn't touch the things even if they slapped Elmo all over the covers. These DVD's are strictly limited to online sales and Jewish Book Stores, and that does explain the higher price. For the license and distribution, they don't intend to sell many of them, and that's how they get their money back. Of course, it works the other way too. They're too pricey and hard to find for casual, non-Jewish fans. At least a TV airing makes these more accessible. And if PBS didn't ruin their pledge months for all the reasons I've said and you've gotten sick of me complaining about, these DVD's would make excellent pledge gifts if they aired the series as pledge month specials.
I think that's what they did with the original 80's series. I lost that tape and I don't even have a VCR anymore.