DVD Wars. Huh. What is it good for?

Here’s the thing I don’t get about the next-gen "DVD Wars." When I moved from VHS to DVD, I got much higher quality output and random access to content. Given that DVDs are already letterbox, what do I get moving to an HD DVD format? Is the quality that much better? Are there other features I get that I’m going to really want? The only feature I wish I had was the ability to easily burn the main content of my DVDs to my computer for random access like I get w/ music today. Will the next-gen formats support that?