Well, I cracked mine open today, and I'm sorry to announce that resoldering the component video connections is out. They're machine soldered, and far far too tight together at the connection point to get my iron in there to reattach better cables.
However, I did disable to stupid HDTV/TV switch, leaving it permanently set to HDTV...one less nuisance. As for extending/improving my cabling..I cut the cable near the adapter, and I'm soldering the appropriate wires onto longer/better cabling.
For those curious though, the wires themselves are well shielded, but a little limited in conductivity. From outside to in, inside the outer pvc shell there's a thin wire braid, most likely tin or nickel. Then there's a foil wrap, nothing unusual about it. All 6 wires are contained therein, but each one has another thin wire braid (same metal), to cut off any EMI from wire to wire within the cable. Then, each is wrapped in pvc shell, and the wire itself is stranded, again likely tin or nickel, and 22-24 AWG. The RCA connectors at the ends are no better. The visible connection itself is going to make a poor connection with the female RCA terminal, and the connector itself appears to be a solder job instead of a crimp-on.
So...is it worth it to rush out and buy the monster replacement? At their prices, I'd be inclined to say no. Hopefully other options will open up. But for the more technically inclined, a better wire can be made. More on that will come, but you'll need a soldering iron, some heat-shrink tubing, and ideally, a coax crimper. Just thought I'd share my progress so far.
Also in the works: splicing the microphone from the 360 and combining it with an actual audio signal to turn a regular PC headset into a fully functional mic and headphones combination. (since as you've probably realized, the "speaker" on the 360 headset is only for playing back other voices, and the whole thing is disgracefully cheap).
