Those first couple (crappy) pix were made before the dust covers were blown off.
MRO was probably pretty busy at first, so they needed to keep image size small, just in case something died, or ...
Mars to Earth bandwidth is slower than your neighborhood IP.
" The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 500 bits per second to 32,000 bits per second (roughly half as fast as a standard home modem). The data rate to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is selected automatically and continuously during communications and can be as high as 2 million bits per second."