any info on 1070 replacement debut?

Nope - no mention of what might be in the plans for that or a 970 replacement...

no plans for a 1070 receiver replacement receiver? looking for a 997 with amp built in. no plans?

Look at the sherwood version of the 997. I imagine that was the plan all along.

I doubt it - for one thing the 997 announcement indicated that they had no plans for a receiver version of it (just as Sherwood had no plans for a processor version), and for another the price would be significantly higher than Outlaw's previous receivers.

Gonk, I was under the impression that Sherwood was marketing the Receiver and Outlaw the Pre-pro. Don't they have similar feature sets. If so, wouldn't the Sherwood machine essentially be the 997 as a receiver?

how come no new version 1070?
is it because the 1070 did not sell well?

i would think an updated 1070 would be perfect with hdmi and new dolby codecs.

Ah, sorry - yes, that is correct. I thought you were suggesting that Outlaw would do a receiver version of the 997, didn't realize you were suggesting the R-972 as an alternative to an Outlaw receiver.
I didn't say that there isn't going to be a new 1070 - I just said that we haven't heard about one, so we have no details (price, features, etc) and no idea of when one might appear. Getting HDMI v1.3 implemented has been messy for all of the manufacturers, and small shops like Outlaw have been particularly hard-hit. As a result, I would expect it to take some time to get things developed in a manner that they are happy with, and until they are close to being ready I suspect that they will keep it well under wraps.

how do sherwood receivers with built in amps compare to outlaw amps? do outlaw amps offer better quality or are they similar in quality to the sherwood receiver amps?

Much like any receiver's built-in amps compare to standalone amps, I'd suspect. Smaller power supply, less total power, less capable at managing difficult loads (low-impedance speakers in particular, but also low-efficiency speakers), and not as capable of naturally-ventilated cooling due to space limitations.

Here's the simple "visual aid" analogy: look at the space available in the left and right sides of the Model 990's cabinet (which is where the seven amp channels of the R-965 were housed - we can anticipate similar or even more severe space limitations on the R-972 since it's in the same chassis). This picture (from the Pictures page in my sig) will help. The R-965's internal amps were rated at 120W/channel. Now look at the Model 7125, which is rated at just 5W more per channel. Again, this picture (taken from the same page) gives some idea of what the 7125 looks like inside. The larger power supply, the heat sinks, and the additional room for each channel are easy-to-identify reasons why the 7125 will be capable of doing more than a "wattage equal" receiver.