I also think that HDMI was done as an effort to shrink the connector size to something more manageable and was probably driven by manufacturing costs as well.

At any rate, the size of the DVI connector limits its usefulness in most receiver/prepros where real estate is already scarce.

Imagine trying to cram 5 or 6 DVI connectors and 1 out on the backplane of a receiver with all the other stuff that is back there already.

Although personally, I would have liked to have seen them go to a connector similar to RJ-45 used for networking. Alas this was not meant to be.