The 990 would be likely to be a nice sonic upgrade from your HK, I'd suspect. It's a hard thing to quantify, but one common comment from 990 owners is how well it handles music - something that surround receivers aren't always so successful with.
It's hard to say just what you'll think of the 990's remote. I went hunting around for some idea of the remotes being used by
Denon ,
Pioneer , and
HK . The Denon remote's layout is a bit jumbled looking for my taste, but that's just one of a number of different remotes currently floating around their receiver line. The Pioneer and HK remotes both have layouts that are (at least in general terms) not too different from the
990\'s main remote .