Our backup, cheapo receiver is dying a quick death, and my wife is amenable to moving my 1050 into that room and replacing my main receiver. I think I've got about $1000 of the "Election year bribe" to put into it. I've loved my 1050 over the years (other than that month of warranty service back in the day), and bought another receiver (950?) for my church youth room with good success. I'm looking at the 7075/970 combo, and would love some thoughts from 970 owners.

The room is dedicated home theater, and that will be the almost exclusive use of the system. I do have HD DVD, and might be going Blu-Ray in the next year, so some of the newer formats like TrueHD and DTS-HD appeal to me, but I'm realistic enough that a great sounding system with regular DTS and the like could tear the socks off a lesser system that has the newest bells and whistles.

As I'm comparing the options, I'm looking at some of the competitor products (esp. Onkyo, Marantz) that do have these bells and whistles and are a bit cheaper ($700-800). They are receivers, not separates, but I've never owned separates, so I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Any advice? Here's my current setup:

Pioneer 5080 Plasma
Outlaw 1050 Receiver
Velodyne Sub (don't remember the model, it's about 7 years old)
B&W bookshelf speakers for L & R
JBL Center and Rears (5.1 setup)
Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player
Xbox 360
Harmony Universal remote (880?)

I run all of my video connections currently direct into the TV, and the digital audio connections direct to the receiver. It's a narrow and long room (maybe 15x40).

Thanks for any advice!