I have a Pioneer DV-505...Over the weekend, I just decided to try getting past the titles that gives you a menu rather than playing the movie straight away. This is what I found:

1) On Star Trek First Contact, I can just press '1' on the remote, and it'll jump to chapter 1, which starts the movie.
2) On Simitar titles, pressing '1' gives the copyright warning. However, while the copyright warning is playing, pressing '1' again will jump to the start of the movie.

As for the default to Dolby Surround instead of 5.1, I find it annoying too, but then, my player has a 'condition' button which will remember the settings for quite a few discs...so after I change a title's soundtrack to 5.1, I press 'condition', and the next time I put the disc in, it'll automatically put it in 5.1.