AV Receivers with HDMI

I ordered a Sony KDS 55A2000 and was planning on upgrading my dvd player and surround system. The only problem I'm having with DVD units that up convert is there seem to be a ton of them. In regards to AV Recievers, I was looking at the Sony STRDG800 but the HDMI is just a pass through and I think the same is true of the Sherwood RD7502. I'm going to check out the Panasonic SAXR57 next it looks promising. I guess one of my questions would be why have a HDMI i/o if an optical audio cable is going to have to be hooked up too? I just upgraded my DirecTV service to HD. I was running a second TVoff the box through a Coaxial run to the basement. The new cable box doesn't have a Coaxial output. Fortunately the current DVD player has a Coaxial output and I was able to hook that the DVD player up to the cable box with component cables. If all all the AV Receivers are just pass thoughts, even if they're not, why pay for pay for the HDMI i/o when I can get digital surround sound by connecting a optical cable? If the preceeding is correct is there an "older: AV Receiver with an optical input and a coaxial output (that will run my second TV). Also if if can't find a AV Receiver to run the second TV is there a converter that will convert component cables to coaxial.