I'm so lost, lol...
I have listened to a couple of the speakers you listed.. But there was a lot of questions and I get easily distracted so if I missed the entire point to your thread Im sorry...
First, I wouldnt set your surrounds 6ft behind you, I have tried with mine every where and the best place is to the left and right of the listener pointed at each other...
Next is the Onkyo 809, you are going to spend $2500+ on a pair of book shelfs but power them with an avr {I know a lot of people do this and it is fine but... I dont know Im stupid... I seen such a big difference going from an avr to separate amp it seems crazy not to do it that way all the time}..
But anyway,
I have listened to a lot of bookshelfs and another one you should consider is the Wharfedale Jade 3's, I bought a set and Im going to build a 2.2 system around them {$1500 in all colors but piano}
WHARFEDALE JADE 3 BOOKSHELF SPEAKERS (PR) at Music Direct
They sounded very clear, dynamic, and invisable {you close your eyes and they just dissapeared} very good projection.... A really nice speaker...
I am going to power mine with an Emotiva xpa-3 {b stock $600} and if I ever want to upgrade it to a theater system just add a set of surrounds, and a jade center....
But as far as useing very expensive bookshelfs for surrounds, I see it as a waste, I noticed that surround duty is very little, so powering them with your avr and using lesser speakers gives the same result, as powering them with a big amp and using $1000 each bookshelfs.... They literally only light up for effects, hardley ever voice and if they do play voice its supposed to sound off in the distance... Usually a car horn, phone ringing, door opening, or footsteps.... Just not worth spending a ton of money on something a $100 speaker can do and you want know the difference...
The best analogy I can think of is, you buy $2000 a peice wheels for your car, and buy the matching spare that goes in the trunk, and that actually is more useful than an expensive surround speaker {Im talking over expensive not a htib speaker, which probably would work in a pretty high end system too....
OK, anyway, hope I helped...