I'm not sure how much an S-VHS VCR will help since your old tapes were (likely) recorded on standard VHS tapes and not special S-VHS tapes (which are considerably more expensive). Some S-VHS decks can record with S-VHS ET which will get a quality somwhere between standard VHS and full S-VHS from a regular VHS tape (which is how I usually record things since S-VHS tapes are so expensive - no DVR for me).
Simply having an S-video out from an S-VHS deck would help a little, but (unfortunately) I wouldn't expect any major improvement playing standard VHS tapes through an S-VHS VCR since you're limited by the source material (unless I'm just not understanding the technology correctly).
And yes, an S-VHS deck should have a special S-VHS logo on it (and it might also say Super VHS somewhere).
