This cropped up in the Sherwood thread recently (from Jeff at Sherwood):
Sounds like we may see Pro Logic IIz in the 997 at some point, although not necessarily on day one.

That's good news. The Volume and the loudness compensation (compensation for not playing at reference level) are pretty important to me, more important than Height. I am looking forward to seeing what the 997 offers.

Mounting the speakers in wall after the fact is easy, IF the wiring is in place already. So, it would be best to put wiring in place for all possibilities.

Or, you could put pvc in place so it would be easy to run the wiring later, if you plan to use expensive speaker wire.

I think I'm going to prewire for both. I'm going to use 10 or 12 gauge belden so the cost won't be huge.

"That's good news. The Volume and the loudness compensation (compensation for not playing at reference level) are pretty important to me, more important than Height."

Jeff at Sherwood says the 972 isn't going to get Dolby Volume.

The prospect of the added height speakers has gotten me interested in HT again. I remember reading about 10.2 way back in the day. Seems like its almost available. I suspect the 997 won't do this though since its so overdue already

yeah, I think they need to build a 9 channel amp first . The PLIIz will be necessary for me to consider the Outlaw product weather its a 997 or some future version

I think a nine-channel amp would come after a nine-channel processor. Assuming that PLIIz is added to the 997 as a firmware update, there's a pretty decent chance that it will be done by re-assigning the surround back outputs for the height channels. Jeff didn't seem to rule out using the second zone outputs to drive the height channels, but I got the impression that it was significantly more likely that they'd have to use the surround backs instead. (This is what Onkyo is going to be doing, as well - and most likely anybody else who adds PLIIz in the near future, as hardware designs with the extra two output channels are going to take time to develop.)

Due to constraints in my family room I have my front speakers mounted high up near the ceiling aimed down. The tweeters are pointed at the seating area so they meet that requirement. I don't have any way to add height speakers therefore (unless they go IN the ceiling forward of the mains, but it's a flat roof with no room under the drywall of the ceiling).

My main right and left speakers are home brew, and taking an idea from an NHT design they are angled at about 20 degrees (the baffle board is tilted not the box). I also put the WOOFER on top of the tweeter with the idea that it would be mounted near the ceiling.

There are rooms where the height channel will be impractical, just as there are rooms where back surrounds are impractical. It sounds like your room will not support the height channel. My room could support it, but unless I used some really small or in-wall/in-ceiling height speakers I doubt the WAF factor would be very high on it.