Great pricing. Strange they skipped the 60s for product number line & jumped into the 70s. I'm curious if the 74TXVi is an upgrade to the 54TX or the 56TXi? I'm wondering if we will see a 76TXVi & 79TXVi in early 2006. Currently they have 5 receivers in their lineup this would drop them down to 3 if they add only the new flagship in early 2006. What's surprising to me the most though is they will once again upgrade their mid-level line before the flagship, I remember seeing pictures forever ago of a flagship Elite with HDMI connections.
One of the cool things the article says is: "Perhaps most exciting of all at these price points, they also include not only component video switching, but also 2-in, 1-out HDMI switching and conversion of all analog video inputs (composite, S-video, and component video) to HDMI."
As for the new look I can't quite tell yet if I like it better, worse or the same.