Probably just the fad of the moment at AVS.

In the several years of trolling home theater and audio forums online, I've discovered that a lot of the folks who think they're experts on these sites really don't know as much as they think they do.

My presumptuous guess (without going over there to check it out) is that some of the folks promoting receiver + amp are doing so to get the latest/bestest Dolby decoding scheme/scam which isn't yet available on a dedicated pre/pro.

Fine. Let them.