Are you sure that's still the case? Over the weekend, I had problems downloading the normal resolution version using get_iplayer, and had to resort to downloading flashvhigh3, which would play on my netbook, unlike flashvhigh1 which would only playback whilst stuttering a lot (flashvhigh3 is 832×468, which is more tolerable on a netbook than the 1280×720 of flashhigh1. flashstd (standard) is only 640×360).
They seem to have sorted this out now, and I can download the normal quality version using get_iplayer, so I would imagine it may well work with whatever you're using.