Are silver coated cables a bunch of hype?

Yes, guys, and as I mentioned above, the skin-effect problems are not present, either at all, or to a much less degree, in a properly designed cable. When the diameter of each conductor is less than twice the figure of the skin-effect depth in that material, the entire conductor becomes "skin-effect", and the frequency anomalies do not occurr. However, when high amplifier power is needed, a single small conductor may not be sufficient. That is why multiple small conductors are wrapped together in a bundle. They must be individually insulated from each other, or there will be "strand-jump" and the entire bundle will behave as a single conductor(worse actually), and the skin effects will again take place. This bundling of wires has it's own problems associated with it too, which is why, in my low power system, I use small guage, single conductor wiring for everything. All DIY. Whenever possible, simpler is usually better, as long as it is done right. I'm sure that the wires you all mention above are well-designed cables and provide excellent sonic quality for your systems.

I could be wrong, but I thought I read some years back that one of the key reasons for coating copper with silver was to eliminate problems of copper being corroded by certain formulations of Teflon. I know that Teflon/Copper cables exist, so perhaps it is either a small issue or different formulations of Teflon present more or less of a problem.

Redkiwi, I have read that silver oxides are still conductive, so that they still sound good after being oxidized, whereas copper oxidation is not conductive/less conductive, and adds bad sounding artifacts. So this could be a good point for using some silver coating. At one time, when wires were inexpensive, this was not a problem because if they had corrosion/oxidation, you just got new ones. But at several thousand dollars a set, we don't want to just go out and buy new, when any oxidation takes place. So for long term use, silver plating may have its advantages over plain copper.

I like the sound of pure and simple copper. Melding of two different metals never seems to become as coherent as a solo one..