I think you are missing out on a lot of options by not looking into ID companies, especially in your price range. Specifically the sierras they are a really nice bookshelf, although I personally think the dentons are better for 2.0 music, I own 2 pairs of sierras one with the tweeter upgrade and one without, its a tough speaker to beat in a BM store for the price, for example, the only speakers my local-ish shoppe sells in your price range would be the wharfedale diamond 10.1, 10.2, the psb mini's {and a the lesser psb series}, some kefs and some b&w's, nothing I would really compare to the sierras, philharmonics, mmg's, ect...
for 2.0 music I would be VERY picky, mostly about the low end, and I would most likely want a preamp with some type of "bass boost" like my parasound 2100, 2 way {probably want at least a 6.5" driver and soft tweet}... And I would make sure to have enough power to keep them "full", not sure about your listening habits, but I want the room full, the bass strong, mids as close to perfect as possible with no' brightness in the high end... I have noticed for some reason, bookshelfs with impressive bass response are not efficient at all, so a couple hundred watts is nice, my 2.2 that I put above has a pair of 200w monos and a pair of 400w subs, in a 300 sq ft room, its just rite at 1/2 volume, and them are crossed at 80hz..