Rene:

At the end of the day, what you want is a computer, not a consumer electronics device. YOU seem to ignore the many reasons why, while there is merit to what you are saying, it simply does not fit the broader profile of the consumer electronics customer.

To say that the addition of the DVI jacks and balanced inputs to the 990 from the original platform are "hacks" is a dis-service, even if you take the definition of "hack" in the original more benign sense, rather than in the more modern "hackers are evil-doers" sense. I'd bet that to get those things correct the Outlaws had to do a considerable amount of testing, not only to make sure the individual modules worked properly, but that they integrated properly with the base platform AND that by adding them there was nothing done that might upset things such as Dolby or DTS certification, UL approval or FCC compliance for EMI/RFI.

A high-quality audio/video product is quite a bit different than an OSS computer, and you just don't "throw in" something such as HDMI switching. The compliance for that, alone, is both a bear and time consuming, the components are NOT cheap and if all of that weren't enough, the standards are changing under our feet.

I'm sure the Outlaws are thinking about all of this -- it is clear that the seem to read these posts -- but at the end of the day you are still left with the considerable difference between a card-cage/backplane type product that runs on OSS or some sort of RTOS and deals more with digital signals vs the very specific nature of purpose-designed products running tightly controlled software and having to operate in an area that has no tolerance for noise, bad grounding, bugs, etc.

You can talk about the Roku all you like, but a surround processor isn't a Roku. Same for TiVo. Sure, there are hacks for it, some of which are done with TiVo looking the other way, but many not. Can you hack into your TV? Your DVD player (unless it is in a computer, but then by definition it isn't a consumer DVD player since it uses software based decoding)? Can you hack into the micro that runs your microwave oven? Your 'fridge? You get the picture. The answer is no for a good reason.