Yes, but how long has the spec been finalized?

The 997 uses TI chips as well, I believe, so it's very possible they could support it via firmware without terribly much hardship. It's the hardware side that's a question. The TX-SR607 is doing it by offering you a choice: rear surrounds or height channel (rear panel pic shows a label for the rear surround binding posts that says something along the lines of "rear surrounds or front high speakers"). It's not giving you the option of 9.1, probably because they didn't have time or desire to stop and add two more channels to the hardware. It's possible that Outlaw could do the same via a firmware update after the product launches.