Thanks! I just found out that rendering an uncompressed AVI with Sony Vegas and then compressing it to the suggested MP4 format using AnyVideo provides a much sharper image when uploaded to YouTube and will also make the “view in high quality” option appear on the video page.
The only thing is that the uncompressed original is HUGE, but no problem, since it’s only a bridge to get to the final file it can be deleted. The MP4 does not go over 15MB.
Thank you again.