I've had the 990/770 set a little over a year and am still thrilled by it.
Skyblazer may be right that no other pre-pro has multiple 7.1 ins, but I agree that it would be a
great thing to have.
It's probably too much to hope far, but I'd love to see Outlaw come up with a companion unit for the 990 with Multiple 7.1's HDMI 1.3 conversion and DACs to handle the new HD sound formats.
Something like what Sony did Briefly with the companion unit for there old 9999ES after SACDs and DVD-As first came out.
The 990 is such a great unit, it would by nice to be able to augment it rather than replacing it.