The image in the article is also not really low-res. As far as I can see Stereo’s CCDs have a resolution of 2048x2048, the image in the press release is 1280x720, that’s not exactly a substantial reduction (also considering that the two images from the two spacecraft were heavily distorted to create this side-view of the sun).
By the way, I found this wiki about processing and analyzing SECCHI’s images, if you wanted to you could presumably learn about it and start processing images on your own: http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DataProces...
If you install CFITSIO[1], you can rebuild GDAL with FITS support. GDAL is the crazy-format swiss army knife. Some caveats[2] apply, though.
1) http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.htm...
Generally, there is very little money and little expertise for polished public outreach efforts (they are scientists, not web developers, after all). There is a good chance the scientists behind [3] are doing some of it in their "spare" time. Feel free to drop them an email and let them know it is appreciated :)
1) http://sharpp.nrl.navy.mil//postflight/lz/L0/a/seq/cor1/2011...
2) http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/
3) http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/data.shtml
4) http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/movie/make_javamovie.php?img1=stb_...)
5) http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/gallery.shtml