it's the same in the uk really, although we're up to date here, but for the first few years it was shown here (and csi and miami too) they were just random episodes in a random order with commercial breaks in unintended places etc. REALLY annoying!
i find it really weird that a country so pro-globalisation and free trade should be so restrictive about its tv content (and film, music etc) especially as all these things can be easily downloaded illegally by anyone anywhere* - if the networks (film cos, music cos) were a bit less uptight, they could probably make more money by giving fans what they want to see at the same time as in the states, instead of being undercut by pirates and torrents, because most people would much rather buy a genuine dvd (cd etc) from the network which comes with special features, guaranteed quality etc etc than buy a crappy copy. piracy rarely affects them anyway as quite a big proportion of people that do it go on to buy the genuine dvd/cd when it's released, as well as those who had access to the initial broadcasts (this has been proven in the music industry many times) - they shouldn't get so frazzled about it - they make a fortune anyway, releasing a show to a foreign network earlier is unlikely to cost them anything - they have to do it at some point, and keeping material from fans really only damages them cos it encourages pirates and pisses people off. it's silly really.
* not that i'm condoning it, of course, i'm just saying it's not exactly rocket science...