Besides that I'm even wondering why DAZ is charging us for the upgrade.

My guess would be, "Because they need the money." Which is also why they had that strange "starter bundle" offer last year. At first, they told everyone that the only way to get upgrade pricing was to buy the starter bundle - IOW, put a deposit down, months ahead of time, before the final product or price was known. (People were less than thrilled at that, so changed the terms a bit, and released more info about Bryce 5.5.)

What I wonder is why they are calling it Bryce 5.5. I think people expect to get a .5 upgrade for free. They should have called it Bryce 6. Or Bryce 5 Pro. Something like that. :-)