I think it's a horse race to see whether the 997 or the UMC-1 is released first. Neither company is doing a whole lot of talking about the source of the delays. I think the days of affordable niche players being able to roll out something as complex as a quality theater receiver/preamp are pretty much over. Unless you want to shell out for the likes of Lexicon, I suspect the only option for the next couple of years are going to come from the larger players (like Onkyo/Matsushita/Sony/etc).

In a couple of years you'll be able to do everything with a general computing device in something similar to a Mac Mini form factor and I suspect the final size of the device will be more driven by the number and type of input/output jacks it needs to support. Perhaps then there will be some opportunity in the software development side for the niche players. We live in interesting times.