ASCORCHINGDEAL:
why is hdmi so important?
In my opinion I don't think it is that important for the audio. As far as I see it if you have an optical audio feed from your DVD or other sources you already have a good quality input source.
HDMI works well for feeding a quality visual output to a HD TV where more traditional sources won't make use of what the TV can provide.
I do not claim to be an expert in this though so feel free to put me straight if you know of a compelling reason I'm unaware of. For example I believe the HDMI 1.3 specification allows better audio connection but don't know enough about it to know if it's that much better than the optical audio feeds mentioned above.