Well, somehow I managed not to obsess about things too long this time.
Purchased the mac mini with my friend's 15% discount. Turns out, I was speccing it wrong, so I saved an extra $70 or so from what I was expecting. $808 total including tax. Now I just have to get the SSD, and maybe a FW800 drive.
I managed to hook up my older mini to the tv, to use as a htpc. Loaded hulu desktop, but it seems like the cpu's not quite up to snuff to play the hulu videos. Why the hell does hulu require a c2d 2.0ghz?