There are a few more things I didn't like about DVD, I don't like the blocky artifacts that you often see in the background (doors, bookcases, etc). Some of the earlier scenes in The Matrix are particularly bad. Fire/explosions are also very poor.

Beyond this, is when they bake a 16:9 movie into the 4:3 format losing significant fidelity. Batman Begins was nearly unwatchable.

This of course doesn't get into the sound quality/mixing issues you mention... I wish they had something closer to h.265 at that time, as I don't mind a blurry background nearly as much as blotchy/blocky artifacts for similar sizes or smaller. A 2gb h.265 movie from blueray looks dramatically better than a 4+gb DVD movie.