Well, if everyone agreed all the time life would be pretty boring. In a nutshell, the 1050 works for me and a lot of others. It's not perfect, could stand an upgrade, but IMO is far from completely obsolete. If a person cares about sonic quality and is more interested in movies than TV it is still a budget contender.

It has real design flaws that (IMO) are more pressing than lacking a few surround modes.

For TV / casual movie (VHS/HBO) use other choices might be better. Personally if MSNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News The History Channel, The Weather Channel etc. are not in full DPL2 surround I don't feel I'm missing a lot....