Well, I've answered my own question. Apparently we in the U.S. don't have to wait till September to order the CD Box version because I just ordered it online for 39.99 Euros, plus 3.50 Euros for shipping. The confirmation email indicated it will be shipped on July 25th, which is OK by me. Now I'll have to wait and see how 43.49 Euros translates into dollars. (I know the conversion rate is not currently favorable for U.S. customers.)
Several more questions still remain:
(1) Must we delete SS2006 in order to play SS2008, or can we play them both from the same (or different) hard drives?
(2) I have an NVIDIA GeForce 5200 128MB video card, and the minimum required is a 5900. Can I still play SS2008 with reasonable graphics if I adjust the graphics settings to minimum?
(3) There was an announcement that Ship Simulator had "gone gold". Does this apply to SS2006, or SS2008? And how many sold copies does going gold mean?