Gonk, I have to agree with your post in it's entirety concerning HDMI. I was in the beginning of this debate on the flip side, that is I was thinking that it was a fault for Outlaw not to have included HDMI with the 990. After reading many articles on the subject, and talking with many Techie's. I have come to the opposite conclusion. I believe that we are at least a few years away from anything truly viable for both video and audio with HDMI formats.