The counter point to that is that DVDs look terrible on modern 60" TVs. You don't have to be a techie to have one of those. Even my 93 year old grandmother has one.
Movies and TV shows before 2008 weren't commercially available in resolution above DVD quality, unless special efforts were made to upscale and re-release them.
"Upscale" is the wrong word here. The film is scanned at a higher resolution. If it was shot on tape then yes it has to be upscaled but almost no films were shot on tape.