I'm sure they lie about the wattage, but budgest receivers are meant for budget people and budget setups. People who probably don't have a big enough room for a big screen and thus won't sit very far away from the speakers. Meaning you don't need gobs of power to achieve a desirable volume. It would also be assumed these same people won't be buying expensive power hungry floorstanders, but reasonably efficient bookshelves or even satellites instead. Prime example: me.
People with bigger homes, bigger displays, bigger everything generally aren't budget people who shouldn't even be looking at budget AVR's, let alone criticizing them. At least Pioneer is taking the initiative to satisfy the budget audio enthusiast by cutting the right corners and providing quality products with the most critical features for audio enjoyment.
