It's all a balancing act, certainly. The video processor is most likely to be useful for non-HD sources, particularly things like cable or satellite TV broadcasts or other SD sources. Those sources normally rely on either the TV's scaler or scalers built into cable/satellite receivers, and aside from some really good TV's out there the results of this sort of video processing are routinely underwhelming. Of course, if you don't already have a TV with a good internal scaler, you could go with something like a DVDO Edge video processor for $500 and keep the 990 alongside the Pioneer 51FD, at which point the only significant feature from KOYAAN's list that is absent is equalization / room correction.