I'm not sure about the first item, but you might be interested in looking at the analog and digital bass management matrix that Outlaw posted along with the firmware update.

As for the second item, I'm game to do some experimenting, but I'm not sure what the question is. A DTS 5.1 soundtrack routed to the 7.1 analog input is purely 5.1, with no processing possible. A DTS 5.1 track delivered through digital coax can get straight DTS processing, DTS+PLIIx processing, or DTS+NEO:6 processing applied. DTS-ES is restricted to discrete DTS-ES soundtracks; the former DTS-ES Matrix mode has been officially phased out by DTS in lieu of DTS+NEO:6 (a case of semantics alone, since DTS-ES Matrix always used the NEO:6 matrix processing to get a surround back signal).