>>>Also, when transfering with firewire, does vegas do any kind of compression or not.
I don't know about your first question but this one is easy :) no compression is done during the transfer over firewire. the process of capturing or printing to tape over firewire is simply a digital transfer of data, like a file copy.
Yes there are other digital transfer protocol systems such as SDI but you need a deck and NLE that supports that. I have not added it to my system but it can be done. Lots of $$$.