Mostly curious: why S/R 2000 Hz for 1 channel, 200 Hz for two or more on the DI-2008

Mostly curious: why S/R 2000 Hz for 1 channel, 200 Hz for two or more on the DI-2008

I was a bit disappointed to learn that -- although you can get a sampling rate of 2000 Hz for one channel  -- as soon as you go to two channels it drops to 200 Hz.  Is there a good explanation for why that is?

More importantly: if you use one of the software APIs, does that restriction still hold?