Hmmmm. I used the Zone 2 feature of the 990 since I first received it. I never encountered that problem at all. Any button press on the Zone 2 remote would activate the Zone 2 feature selected.

In fact, I'm not sure what you mean by "activate the 990 display." Oh, do you mean the on-screen display? If that's the case, then I'm not sure. I never used the OSD for anything other than setup, so I never expect it to overlay on the screen. If you are talking about the front panel display, then it was always on for me, and when I pressed a Zone 2 command, it reflected that it got the command immediately.

Now here's the part I found annoying -- once you get into Zone 2 "mode", if you press "volume up" for the main zone, it will still control Zone 2's volume. I reverts to Zone 1 after about five or eight seconds, but during that time, it will continue to control Zone 2. I really thought it was a firmware bug, but Steve (previous Outlaw employee) told me it was designed that way. I don't recall the reasoning for his statement, but it never made sense to me. I have some experience now with another preamp that will allow the user to control Zone 1 and then Zone 2 (and vice versa) with no delay, and it's nice...

Good luck!