I've experimented with powerline connections in the past, with mixed results. An electrician friend of mine surmised there are some marginal ground connections in the house (it's about 48 years old), and that could be why that is not been successful.
The Asus RT-N12 router I ordered showed up this afternoon, but I probably won't attempt to hook it up until Friday morning. I also ordered a highly rated shielded Cat6a cable to snake through my home office to allow the new router to sit on the high spot I mentioned in the original post. Even though it would be 15 feet closer to the Blu-ray player, I today recognized I needed about 35 feet of cable to attractively snake it to that point in the room. All I had around were cheap quality 20' Cat5's. Ordered a 50' quality cable from Amazon today.
Thanks again all for the feedback.