Any suggestions please, or do you think its not worth bothering about based upon the equipment.

I am thinking of a soundbar or a 2.1 system for the kitchen/family room.
The budget is $1,000 (max).  

Connected to a Panasonic G10 50" Plasma (2 HDMI at back and 1 HDMI on side) are:

Tivo (NZ) to 3 IN, 1 OUT HDMI switch
A C Ryan PlayonHD Mini to 3 IN, 1 OUT HDMI Switch
MySKY via HDMI (I only have the base package and no HD Ticket)
(therefore the side HMDI is not being used) 

I could do 5.1 but the rear speakers would have to be wireless and they would be immediately behind the people watching the TV. Space is limited so they would have to be on the window ledge or on thin stands. I have power nearby.

The speakers should be small.
The TV etc sits on a moveable entertainment cabinet (custom made) and we move the cabinet through 90degrees on a daily basis. A soundbar would have to be on its own feet, on top of the cabinet and to clear the TV stand. The cabinet itself has only has 4 x 580mm length shelves.  

I could connect a Pansonic DVD HDD recorder which has an HDMI Out, but I have put all my DVD's (.iso) and music onto a NAS (accessed wirelessly) and onto a USB powered 640gb HDD (attached to the Playon). I don't have any use for the DVD recorder.

I have a OpenOffice Draw diagram of all the equipment and available connectors which could be converted to a .pdf.  

PS I already have a 5.1 Home Theatre set up in the lounge using a Denon receiver (AVR 1603) and Polk Audio speakers (all floor standing, except for centre speaker, entry level equipment). I am using both coaxial and optical sound cables to the receiver. The equipment is now probably 10 years old.