Phew! - I don't know where you draw the line, since each person will put the line in a different place. The audio processing and D/A conversion is important no matter what, and it would be at the heart of a high-performance basic unit. Video switching has a huge convenience factor, but I could see having something more akin to the old-style transcoding switching you have on the Model 990 (might need deinterlacing for 480i sources before converting from analog to HDMI because some TV's don't like to get 480i over HDMI, but anything past that would be open for debate). Basic auto setup is also a big convenience item, but it might be an opportunity to scale back - either just do something like the 990 (no room EQ) or remove it entirely.