It's an excellent point, but if he's gone 12 years without an upgrade the 990 is an opportunity to make a huge leap forward for little first cost. And within a year or so, there will almost certainly be players available that will provide the new audio formats without needing onboard decoding.

I think that in this case, there's not really a "wrong" choice - waiting for the next gen will cost more but should offer some great hardware, while jumping on the 990 deal now is a great value with immediate benefits.