I see no problem with asking this. Since we don't yet have first-hand experience with the 997, though, it is a hard question to answer.

Both are using the Reon video processing chip, so they have that in common. The 886 is THX certified with the associated processing that goes with that (although personally I've quit using the THX modes on my 885 and gone back to simply using PLIIx). I expect the 886 to have somewhat "fancier" looking menus, based on what I've seen of the 885, but that comes at a price - the 885 is a complex beast, and the 886 will only be more so. They crammed lots of handy bells and whistles in there, but I question how much care they put into making it easy to use.

The big difference that everyone wants to know about is room correction. The 886 has Audyssey MultEQ. Audyssey is probably the best room correction available aside from possibly some of the proprietary stuff from Lexicon or Anthem (both of which require owning processors that cost $6000 or more), but Trinnov has the potential to dethrone Audyssey. What I found interesting while testing the BDP-83 with an Onkyo 885 was that we often used the analog outputs (with no Audyssey applied) and found the results equal to or even superior to the digital output (with Audyssey applied). My room is relatively well-behaved, so it's not a good test of Audyssey's full potential, but in my space Audyssey was not a significant factor. Will Trinnov's remapping offer something really significant that Audyssey couldn't? We don't know yet - but I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to find out.