I'm powering my PSB Platinums with a NAD integrated, and I think it sounds just fine.
On the AVR end, I think they fell behind the mega-companies (Onkyo, Sony, Denon), simply because in the last few years it seems you had to upgrade your entire line every 6 months for the latest & greatest features. (Like the great HDMI 1.3 catastrophe).
Example: the 'Master Series' M15 pre-amp costs $3000, but only has component video for half its video inputs, and a mear 2 HDMI (not 1.3) inputs. There are $900 AVRs with more connectors than this. I'm sure it sounds better, but why didn't they just wait a year unil they had 1.3 and enough HDMI inputs to satisfy ther customers? You buy an M15 now, by Xmas 2007 you'll need the $4000 M16! finally with Dolby TrueHd and DTS-HD. With a $3K price tag I wouldn't be suprised if this isn't exactly "flying off the shelves" (The M3 integrated has been taking some critical flack on a few forums, I was offered one at 1/2 MSRP and wasn't interested).