Indeed, the display is rather hard to read. I personally think it's a combination of being a bit small and using just the wrong shade of blue. I have an old shelf system sitting just above it and while the text on the display is only a little bit bigger the color is more of a blueish white and very visible.

As for the price... well, it's still a tremendous value. The only problem is that the 1050 was an amazing value for an entry level system, this is more of an amazing value on a mid-level system. One of the critical differences though is that the other manufacturers are offering similar features, but they haven't really increased their prices that much meaning that the quality has likely just gone down to support more features.

There's a quote on my desk at work "There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little bit worse and sell a little cheaper". In the Hi-Fi and HT world I find that this tends to work both ways pretty steadily. Thankfully Outlaw exists in perfect balance right in the middle, making a great product and selling it for a great price without compromising anything.