Many thanks Cameron!
Well I'm going to hold my breath and hope for an updated Mini soon. According to Macrumors buying guide it's approaching the end of an average life cycle [based on previous times between updates]. I'm just hoping they bump up the HD, CPU (which are generally given) and RAM. The current Minis only come with 1GB of RAM. I have 2GB of my Macbook Pro's RAM around (bought 4GB from OWC) but I'd invalidate the warranty by opening up a Mini and replacing the RAM (not that it stopped me from replacing the hard drive on my Macbook Pro, talk about surgery!).
I did know that the Mini lacks HDCP and therefore won't do iTunes rentals but I really wasn't in that market anyway. If a new Mini were to come out in the next month or two, even without an HDMI upgrade, I think I'll pull the trigger. HDMI to DVI has, in my experience, performed well, and now that I know how to get optical out of it, I think the Mini will fit my bill since it will allow me to use external HDs. It'll probably be a better web browser than an AppleTV
