Two minor comments that can't pretend to fully address anything said above:
Davem wrote:
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Once he is able to rest & make a decision he accepts the task of taking the Ring to the fire - but does he make that choice out of defiance or despair?
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I would say neither; rather: he knew that accepting the task was the
morally right thing to do, unequivocally, regardless of how he felt about it. I don't know whether he felt despair or defiance or hope or all three; but I think that his decision was made without respect to these things. Later, when he effectively makes the same decision at Amon Hen, Sam correctly analyzes his predicament: he is not trying to make up his mind at all; he knows exactly what he ought to do - he is only working up his courage to actually do it.
Child of the Seventh Age wrote:
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Despair is the last characteristic I normally associate with Sam. Yet here, Sam can not control his negativity.
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Recall also what he tells himself when he learns that Frodo was not in fact killed by Shelob: "The trouble with you is that you never really had any hope." Also in IV-3 we have "After all, he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed."
He does not despair, but only because he can "postpone" it. Shippey cites this passage and argues that Sam is cheerful but not hopeful - one can be cheerful (outwardly agreeable, putting on a good face) with or without real inner hope or joy.