First I would like to state that I currently have an HD DVD Player and do not have a BD Player. Having stated this I am going to go neutral and am trying to decide which player to purchase myself. The following is based on my research on several forums.

There are a lot of complaints regarding the BDP-1400 and I would personally not recommend it. I have read of many reports of users returning these.
With regards to the Sony a number of users have been having issues with the player locking up.
Out of the three you mentioned I would recommend the Sharp BD-HP20U.

Personally I am leaning towards a PS3 or the new Panasonic.

Many state that the PS3 is one of the best, if not the best, BD Players currently on the market. Sony recently released a 40 GB version for $399 USD. One of the negatives is that it cannot play PS2 games; not really a downside if you don't intend to play PS2 games however. The other negative is that it uses a blue tooth remote; no IR. On a positive note it is believed that this player will be updated to Profile 1.1 through a firmware upgrade.

If you want a stand alone player I would recommend waiting for the Panasonic DMP-BD30. This is the first profile 1.1 player to be released.

You may want to check on blu-ray.com for more information.