Sharpie,
Do all channels look bad? Take a look at the premium channels or the PPV channels during the 5 minute previews at the beginning of a movie. Those channels have the least compression and should always look good unless something is wrong with your setup.
tv.yahoo.com has both DirecTV and Dish. You can also create a favorites list with your locals and cable channels on the same page. You will need to give Yahoo your zip code though.
Just out of curiosity (not that it really matters to me, since I don't have or plan to get HD), but why don't they also put Bravo-HD on 274 and TND-HD on 246? The network HD channels could be remapped to the 390's as well.
Connect the better tv via composite cables or s-video and the other by coax. I have an RCA430 receiver and have a DVD Recorded connected to it via s-video and a coax running directly to the tv so I can watch tv without turning on the dvdr. Be better if the receiver had two sets of a/v outputs...
Having sampled XM on their website and hearing how annoying some of the DJs/announcers are, I'd much rather have Music Choice. The announcers are as bad if not worse than the ads. At least radio ads are entertaining sometimes. :)