I wouldn't even mind the prices of Blu-ray players if the spec was finalized. Why anyone would buy standalone Blu-ray players at this point is beyond me.
And yeah, it wasn't consumers choosing Blu-ray. Consumers wouldn't have chosen user-unfriendly DRM. Consumers wouldn't have chosen a format war. Consumers wouldn't have chosen a higher price point for content. It's nothing to do with consumer choice. If that was the case, they would drop HD discs and focus only on standard DVD. They're basing their decision on many other factors before that of what the consumer wants, though I suppose press releases wouldn't be press releases if they were honest.
