Am very close to purchasing the 970. Will I be able to retire (ebay) my ICBM that I'm using on my Pioneer 578A player and be happy with the 970's bass managment?

The 970 offers two options that might suit you: an 80Hz analog crossover (the purest of the two, since it keeps things in the analog domain) and analog/digital conversion so the quadruple crossovers can be used (which provides the same capabilities as the ICBM except for the stereo sub option but does introduce analog to digital to analog conversion steps). Depending on your speakers, the 80Hz analog option may work for you (I had godd luck with that on my 950). If you need the flexibility, I'd certainly suggest trying the digital bass management option to see if it would let you part with the ICBM.

I'm pretty much running 80hz across the board now with the ICBM, so it might work out ok. Have you heard any reports with people using the analog/digital conversion method?

I haven't. If 80Hz works well for you, I'd probably recommend the analog, but it certainly would be worthwhile (and simple) to give the digital a whirl.

A few users like me reported a drastic phase shift on the SW out when using the analog bm on the 950. I dodn't know if the 970 exhibit similar issues or not.