Talking to some operator at Nintendo is hardly proof. Most people hardly understand HD, TV's, cables, etc. at all.

Jason, before you do anything else or say anything else, do this:

Get out the Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition or some other game that has old games that "weren't coded to take advantage of progressive", play it in 480i, then play it in 480p (switch the options back and forth in your Wii browser), and tell me that you can't notice a difference. 480p is twice the vertical resolution. Of course there's going to be a difference! Is it as big of a difference as there would be in Gears of War? No. But, the difference is there. At the very least, the text is going to be much crisper. The picture isn't being interlaced in progressive scan. That makes a difference no matter what you're watching, whether it was "meant" to be viewed that way or not.

Because the game is two discs long...

GameCube discs can only hold 1.5 GBs of space. Two discs were required to fit all the cut-scenes, voice acting, and great graphics.

And, why haven't you ordered a pair of Wii component cables yet? You're not getting any benefit from the HDTV by having it hooked up with regular old composite cables. The Wii actually looks worse on an HDTV without component, so snag a pair and enjoy the sexyness of a 480p image.

Once you do this, I'm guessing 60hz mode will look better, though I'm not an expert when it comes to that topic.