Can anybody explain all this stuff? I'm a little bit confused as to how all these connections work, what they connect to, etc.

Any help on any parts would be much appreciated :-)

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It is my understanding that some, like SPID/F, are for digital and others are for analog sound. I think the reason for the large number of different types is just to cover the variety of different connectors that sound cards and speakers have. Some have just the analog and some have digital too. I know my speakers have plugs for analog left/right, and also a SPDI/F and minijack plug for digital. So in short, I think they are just to cover all the possible configurations in sound card/speaker setups.

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I would add that digital out is only usable if you have some receiver/amplifier/minidisc capable of digital input. This can be used e.g. for watching DVDs on a DolbyDigital/DTS decoder. This is the way I use it.