I firmly believe in

1. Less is more
2. The K.I.S.S method

I have no doubt that I am in the minority but an awesome all analog preamp from Outlaw would be just about the best thing ever for me. For me music comes first then DVD and BluRay. I listen to a lot of SACD and DVD-A surround recordings as well as 2 channel. The OPPO does an excellent job decoding everything I have. This past weekend I pulled my old Onkyo out of the mix and went straight from the OPPO to my amp and was completely blown away by the improvement even though I always used the "direct" mode on the Onkyo.
The only drawbacks are no way to use the fine OPPO stereo DACs and the 5.1 analog out, minimalist volume control, and no phono in.
I've looked at offerings like the Parasound P7 and Audio Research MP-1 which seem would like the ticket except for price and a few minor features.

Clearly a "one-box-does-all", like the 978 is difficult to achieve and then offers redundancy and features that I would never need or use.

Remember we all did fine before HDMI, room correction, streaming, network, etc. Man, I miss the simple times.

Outlaws, maybe there is room for such a product in your lineup.