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If, later down the road, we stand to lose a justice that is friendly to our view then we should dig in for a long fight because that is when it will really matter.
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If we wait until an anti is nominated to replace a pro-Second Heller vote, we will already be behind the power curve when that fight comes.
Sotomayor offers an excellent opportunity to make the Democrats in the Senate who claim to be pro-Second Amendment demonstrate which is more important to them: the Bill of Rights or their party affiliation. Personally, that is information I want to know before we go into mid-term elections in 2010.
Second, Sotomayor cannot be nominated without those pro-gun Democrats. Even in the event they decide their loyalties lie more to the party, they may be able to bring pressure on the Administration to make concessions to the NRA (like remaining neutral on legislation or regulations) in return for the NRA not counting the nomination vote against them. The louder the noise is on this issue, the more they have to look to the NRA or similar organizations in order to build their credentials back up for midterms.
Finally, the harder we make them work to replace an anti-Second Justice on the Supreme Court, the less likely they are to want that fight again in the future.
In terms of the battle analogy you used, Sotomayor is the first in a line of trenches. We don't fire one shot as soon as we see the enemy and retreat to our last line of defense (replacing pro-2nd Justice with anti), we make them fight desperately for every single trench and we only give it up when we can't hold it anymore. Chances are real good we will have to let them have this trench; but we still have the opportunity to make it costly for them.