Tough decisions
I find this debate very intriguing and thought I'd share some of my discoveries when looking for a bang for the buck receiver that included pre-outs this year.
Competing models across receiver brands were as different in room calibration quality, video processing quality, and overall product philosophy as I remember seeing in quite some time.
When looking strictly at products that included a full set of pre-outs a wide gap in product weight (read transformer/amp quality) and features stood out. Frankly, it became quite easy to eliminate some of the possibilities using this criteria.
This year's retail prices are difficult to judge because some brands seem to allow official vendors to discount much more than others. So what may appear as say $700 model, may be more like a $600 model whereas another brand may be a true $700 model since nearly nothing is taken off the retail price.
Bottom line, be more careful than ever when shopping for a receiver.
For those wondering I ended up getting the Pioneer 1120-K. It's amp section is among those that Gene would probably be a little concerned with, but is in fact a step up over the 1020-K's. Pioneer's cost cutting seems to be in amp and chassis design. Pre-outs are more a necessity than ever at the sub $1000 level.