Heh.. Well today I cracked.. rather inefficiently, but was working with the funds I had available..
Picked up a DVP5990 and a Western Digital Passport 160gb for about $60 each.. The passport was marked down.. If I hadn't bought a non-stick pots & pans set for my mom this morning on a whim, I coulda bought a 1TB external WD My Book, although I knew for sure the passport would work with the player..
Tested it out and its pretty nice. 160GB may be small but its at least ten 50 episode Anime series' with a little room to spare..heh
When I have more money in the future for a bigger drive, I can just use axe my music partition and use the drive for an extra 50gb of space.
Haven't tested WMV yet, but it supposedly plays those too.