Am I mistaken, or are those connections just like the end of a coaxal
lead,
and not conventional jack socket things?

All jacks on the rear bracket of soundblaster live/audigy cards are 3.5mm
"headphone" style jacks to save space. It's easy to get converter plugs
though at a relativley well-stocked hifi/consumer electronics store or such
if you should need it.

I'm still god damn confused. My existing 5.1 sound system is the Creative
Labs 5.1 Inspire set (Digital 5500). I'm really annoyed that I can't use
my
creative speaker set with my (soon to be) creative sound card. What's up
with that?

Well, you CAN use it, it's just you'll get stereo sound from games and such,
unless it like I previously explained, features the triple analog inputs
needed to deliver surround sound. It just doesn't seem to be designed to do
what you want it to do. Sorry, but it's not our fault.