I am embarrased to admit, but it had nothing to do with the component connect. After seeing the consensus that HDMI will always be better, I re-dug into my settings and found that having the Samsung TV picture on DYNAMIC, (along with sharpness high and backlight & brightness in just the right place,) the image really "jumps" out at you! I know that I tried every combination of settings when I first setup the TV, but the dynamic image will look great on only certain channels so I must have missed it at first. Sorry for the error and thanks for the replies!
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