Component doesn't compare to hdmi either in my opinion. Between me and my parents we have 3 HDTVs, and I disagree fully with everything you have said. Technically it may be true, but not to my sight.
I can't say if the PS3 looks better with HDMI than with component, because I have seen always with HDMI, I think. But as I said before to my eyes (and many film enthusiast) standalone BD players >>>>> PS3 both with HDMI or component, so I don't really care.
In the end, the difference in IQ between the players and TVs is a lot bigger than between the cables. And as I said, probably nowadays they do a better implementation of HDMI, than they do with component, because supporting both is more expensive than supporting one. So they use a good digital-to-digital converter and the cheaper digital-to-analog they can get. If they have to support one, it's clear that for marketing purposes, and because it's only one cable they are supporting HDMI. If you can use both, just use HDMI, because at the same quality, use the simpler one. But image quality is another story, they are both of same quality.
There's only one scenario where HDMI is of a little better IQ though and it's this: recorded in 1080p -> stored in 1080p -> played in 1080p -> HDMI -> 1080p native HDTV. If the source, the player or the TV are of different resolution digital-to-analog-to-digital (component) is better than digital down/up sampling. If the player is more than 10m away from the TV, analog is better, if there's lot of humidity and/or over the time analog resists better, so over the time component will look better, because HDMI will be degraded... These are the facts of the professionals, and there's no other choice than care about them, because they are the people who develop those technologies. Also bear in mind that HDMI was not aproved by VESA, and there must be a reason for that, instead they developed Displayport.
I'm not trying to say that HDMI is not better than component overall, because it is. It's more practical and easy to use, but speaking of pure image quality is not better than component and that's a fact.
About what your eyes see, let me be skeptical, not because I don't believe that you see what you say that you see. It's because what we see, is totally bound to what we want to see, to what we are influenced to see. And they did such a good marketing job there...
