Honestly I have to agree with the pre/pro the $ to value ratio on this unit is well above anything else I have compared it to. I am happy with my Marantz, 8802A, but If I am going to upgrade again I see no reason to spend 5K on a Pre/Pro.
By the way, I know the 8802A has some major upgrade from my 8801 but not in terms of the real bottleneck so the theoretical SQ improvements should be almost 0 according to Dr. Rich. I can tell you my cheap X4400H that replaced it has been able to surprise me time and again with the dynamic impacts while watching movies. No difference that I could ever detect with music too since day one, though I rarely use the HT system for music, my Oppo 105 there is used for movies and streaming 99.99% of the time. I thought I would share my experience, in case it may give you more confidence to "upgrade" to something much less expensive to Marantz flag ship AVP.
Audiosciencereview.com's measurements seem to confirm Dr. Rich's assessments, that the Renesas LSI volume control chip is the real bottleneck. Better DAC and HDAM down stream really can't help. Amir is going to measure the RX-A1080 soon, if that measures well, then I think the less expensive CX-A5X00 could be a good alternative to the AV88XX, for those who can't stand and con't consider cheap AVRs as prepro like I do.