Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray player

I purchased the BD-580 Blu-Ray Player before Christmas to go with my Sony Surround Sound Stereo (pre HDMI and Coax Digital) and other Sony Products.
On setting up the system, I only found out that it doesn't have the industry standard OPTICAL Digital Output, only the COAX digital out. Thus I cannot listen to movies in 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound.
I could understand this if Optical Digital had become obsolete - except the next model of the Blu-Ray Player had it back. In fact it's been hard to find another player that doesn't have Optical Digital Out.
I expressed my complete dissatisfaction with Customer Service about this product and their response was that I should take it to consumer affairs or court if I was that unsatisfied.
By all means I never had a problem with any other Sony products, and sure, if you don't need Digital Optical (and do have a Coax Digital System) to listen to the sound then yep .. this is an okay Blu-Ray player, but if you do need Optical Digial out - avoid this at all costs.
At the same time - if you do need support from Sony Customer service - you may want to avoid Sony products all together - which is a shame because we've been using them for over 40 years happily until this experience.
We won't be buying Sony again.