I may be bucking the trend, but I'm not anxious to see outlaw rush to market with an HDMI 1.3 processor.
I'm a bit leary of the new sound formats as none of the early disc players from either camp provided a 7.1 listening solution. I would think there would be a reason for that.
Beyond that, we all revere Outlaw for it's superior processing at a reasonable cost. As early adopters have found out, many early generation products offer niether. It would be hard to visualize Outlaw being able to do so until the technology has matured a bit.
Those of us that are SACD/ DVD-A lovers have suffered along with processing in the source device and it's not been any huge burden. It will be more of a problem as we have to make choices as to what stays plugged into the 7.1 analog inputs. I think an outboard switcher, possibly with both 7.1 analog and HDMI switching capability would be a nobel product, But I'd hate to see the quality of the 990 degraded with less than superior processing or see the price shoot up to the point that we can't afford the unit.