I'm not sure about your HTML sitemap; I don't think HTML sitemaps are a supported format for you to submit to Google (I don't see them on sitemaps.org).  You just need Google to crawl this page, and all the pages it links to?  There is a plain text format (see here) that is allowed for sitemaps.  You could probably change your HTML sitemap pretty easily to that format.

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to submit multiple sitemaps, but I can't find anything concrete saying you can or can't.  The Google Webmaster Tools UI seems to support it, so my guess is that it would be fine.  Try it and see if it works?  You could also create a sitemap index file that references both these sitemaps.

You can read more about sitemaps on sitemaps.org.  According to the Google help doc here, they adhere to these standards.

When looking at conversions I usually look at my Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths report.  Here, if you select a Primary dimension of "Source/Medium", a Secondary dimension of "Keyword Path", and set an advanced filter for Source/Medium containing "organic", you should see all the conversion paths that involve an organic keyword.

So... if you have these set up as separate profiles, and have a profile that's just for the www.example.com subdomain, and have set up the scehdule a service action as a goal, you should be able to see this in your conversion paths report.  Go to Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths.  Select "Source/Medium Path" as the Primary Dimension.  Now, if you filter by "example.com", this should show conversions that involve referrals from your subdomains (that aren't a part of that GA profile).  If you have many goals and only are interested in the schedule a service goal, then select only that goal at the top.

As is the case many times in Google Analytics, there's more than one way to skin a cat, but hopefully this works for you.

If you think people may link to these landing pages, you'd be better off putting them on your main domain, so these pages help contribute to your main domains rank.  Generally it's better to put quality pages on your domain, instead of putting landing pages on these extra domains, and pointing them to your site.  It doesn't sound like your extra domains will have much pagerank to pass to your main domain.

Also, more importantly (for me at least), it would be strange to arrive at a landing page, and click a nav link, and arrive at a completely different domain that uses the same nav/header/footer.  I'd feel like there was some spoofing going on...

I'd just set up these extra domains to 301 redirect to my main domain, and leave it at that.

Anytime!  Happy to help.

Sorry, I'm a little confused as well.  Why would you want people linking to your RSS feed instead of your original posts?  Why would you even want the RSS feed to be indexed and returned in search results rather than the original posts?  Wouldn't Google want to link people to the original post vs. the RSS feed?  Aren't RSS feeds supposed to be a feed of content already on your site... so I don't see why Google would have much of an incentive to spider it or return it in search results?

You can set up the goals in the subdomains profiles if you want to view goals there.  That's entirely up to you.  Each profile is its own thing.  When I say "filter", I mean write "example.com" into the search box there, and search by it.  You can also click "advanced" next to the search box, and make the search more granular if needbe.

I agree with SEOConsult all the way.  It's all correlation.  In my experience, .us domains tend to be worse (bad content, more ads, less well put together, bad user experience, etc) than .com domains, so I would expect those sites to do worse in the SERPs.  It's not the .us domain that's making the sites worse in general.  If you put together a terrific .us site, it would do fine.

The main issue I have with .us vs .com and .org.uk vs .co.uk is that people have to remember to enter those extensions.  If you have the yourbrand.us domain, a lot of people are going to put yourbrand.com in when trying to get to your site.  They may give up there.

Also, I am more likely to trust a .com domain over a .us domain, and I'm more likely to click a .com in the SERPs over a .us domain.  Do you have many .us domains you ever visit?  I can't think of any off the top of my head.  Even del.icio.us migrated to delicious.com.

I believe that is commonly done with the meta refresh tag.  From http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection:

Meta Refresh

Meta refreshes are a type of redirect that is executed on the page level rather than the server level (They are usually slower and not a recommended SEO technique). They are most commonly associated with a 5 second count down with text "If you are not redirected in 5 seconds, click here". Meta refreshes do pass some link juice but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to usability and the loss of link juice passed.