julian, I see now what you mean (I use flac also).
But...I was referring to high res as in the music data would be a lot closer to the res the actual (digital) recording or mastering was stored in at the record companies. Not the tricked up sacd or dvd-a formats. I assume the record companies will release these higher res formats if there is demand and they will cost more than CD res versions of the same material.
The DRM issue is still in its infancy and a lot needs to be done before it becomes a non-issue I agree. For now, the record companies (and movie studios) are still struggling with their business models. These issues will get resolved eventually (hopefully sooner than later).
Regarding having local storage...yep, for the next few years it's still with us, but I'm sure in the (not that distant) future all that material will be on-line and reliable. Like cable or phone lines, no one really worries anymore about their phone line or cable going dead do they?