Brakes - FLatrater and Bignosey, Thank you! !

I bought two rotors and pads at our 'Canadian Tire' chain store. They offered me two choices of the rotors:
Premium - $130.00 each
Standard - $ 50.00 each
When I asked them what is the difference between the Premium and Standard makes, the clerk told me that it is the origin of make. According to him the expensive rotors are made in Europe and the Standard are made in US. I don't find this a satisfactory answer. Why would US rotors be so much inferior to European? The standard types (which I got) looked all right to me! They are all made of cast iron, what could be the difference between both types? Any guess from you guys?
The total bill came to $ 173.00 including the pads.
Thank you also for your tip in measuring the travel with the help of measuring tape. It worked great! I done it 3 times and got around 1"7/8 to 2" travel after pumping the pedal several times as you mentiones. Guess what, this 'trick' with the tape was something new even to our College automotive technicians.
Should I definitively change the brake fluid at the same time?
THank you again from the Czech guy - Peter

In my experience, the $50 rotors are off shore rotors and are usuaaly cheap and do just as good a job as the premium rotors. I'm surprised the premium rotors are that expensive.

It sounds like you found your brake problem. I'll bet you could hear metal-to-metal grinding if they were that far gone. I remember once on my 86 Century one pad just went to pieces and I had instant metal-to-metal. It took a lot of skill getting it the 5 miles home using only the parking brakes and downshifting, but the rotor was still turnable after that.
For the future, inspect your brakes regularly. I try to rotate tires (important on a FWD) every 5000 miles and check the brakes at the same time. Its easy to yank the rear drums off at the same time and at least shake out the dust.