shopping for player, a few specific ?'s

[caheaton]

Hello, I'm still searching for my blu ray player and have a few questions for the group. First, I'm leaning towards the Sony 550 or the Panasonic 55, but I also find the Samsung 2500 intriguing due to the HQV chipset. For background information, my equipment is as follows:

--Samsung 720p DLP television (HLS5086W)
--Yamaha HTR-5730 receiver (an older DD & DTS receiver, but it does offer analog inputs and was (is?) considered a pretty decent inexpensive receiver)
--Smallish Yamaha speakers that give pretty good sound, but not optimally located in the viewing room due to size and furniture layout contstraints (rear surround speakers are located directly behind and above the sofa, center channel above TV, front left and right about 4 feet from center speaker).

I would like to hook my equipment up using the analog inputs into my receiver and HDMI into my television. However, in the short term I may connect the player to the receiver using the legacy connectors (coaxial preferred but toslink okay...I would need to get a converter for the optical to electrical or disconnect a piece of equipment already connected). I would also likely use the component video cables for the short term. Later I would like to tear the system apart and hook it all up optimally, but might wait until I get a new receiver (likely a couple years in the future).

So, here are my questions.
First, is the HQV processor superior to the other options out there at downscalling 1080p blu rays to 720p, or are the other players listed above up to the task? (I understand that it's superior at uprezzing.)

Second, will I notice a significant difference in picture quality between analog and digital video connections given that the signal has already been downrezzed to 720p?

Next, given my speaker arrangement, would I notice much improvement using lossless audio versus DD or DTS? Perhaps I would be better served to look for a player without the analog outputs?

Thanks for all your help guys....
(I'm probably overanalyzing this, but that's what I do.
Craig