One small quible Moth: I don't think there's the equivalent of packet resending in HT.
But then, the stream isn't being split up and sent out nilly willy throughout the net either. Just one, solid, direct connection.
"But where can you find a field large enough, in the 3 feet between your DVD player and reciever, to alter the voltages by more than a volt?'
In a shielded cable no less.
"At high frequencies, the sold center becomes the "ground", cancelling noise."
Not to mention the skin effects that would happen on the solid core at high frequencies.