True enough, but prudence might dictate that it is better to wait for hardware that supports what HDMI will become in the long term, with the rumored 1.3 or later that will be needed to deal with the audio codecs on high def DVDs, rather than bet on 1.1/1.2 solutions. (And as noted, 1.2 isn't even approved yet -- though that ought to be sooner than later.)

No one really knows yet if any current 1.1 product will be able to flash-upgrade to a 1.3 or higher standard, but chances are high that the answer may be no since a new HDMI rev may well require new chips on both the receive and transmit side. WIth that hanging over their heads, the Outlaws probably did the right thing in providing some sort of digital video switching for those who need it, without locking HDMI partisans into something that may soon be obsolete.

There is also the issue of cost, and one has to believe that the 990 would have had to endure a significant cost up if full HDMI capability, not just the switching offered by current entry level products was added.

What you REALLY want is not only HDMI switching, but the ability to accomodate long term format changes as well as the ability to not just switch the incoming signals, but "take them apart" so that the audio streams can be sent to the audio DSP for in-receiver processing. At the same time, if you do THAT, then you may as well also do some video upscaling so that all incoming video is processed and scaled to an output that matches the resolution of the video display.

All possible, but NOT cheap, and certainlly not something that can be done at all, let alone with any measure of quality, in a processor that has the price of the 990.

You have to believe that Outlaw is planning for what will be the ultimate course, but reasonable sanity checks say that such a product from them, or anyone else, is 12 to 18 months off, particularly at a 990-like price.