bwhiteford,

Yes, Samsung sucks for this very reason.

Your VGA source thing could have 2 potential glitches.

Does the TV go from sleep mode to power down mode after an extended period of time? I don't do much with samsung so I don't know.

Not with samsung mind you but I've done the open input signal on vga before and some vga switchers will send a no signal present signal to the monitor defeating your idea. Other switchers somehow manage to keep the input "hot" even if they don't give you a no input signal on the display.