It's a shame that the Model 997 didn't pan out, but after reading the R-972 thread at AVS off and on for something like six months now, this feels like a good decision - it felt like stable firmware was a lot of months away, and even then it wasn't necessarily guaranteed. A Model 997 that came to market in December 2010 would have been very out of place, even with the potential that Trinnov offers.

The Model 998, on the other hand, certainly sounds promising. The design approach (with Outlaw having a more direct hand in the decision-making process) and feature set (with Trinnov, PLIIz, and HDMI v1.4) are reminiscent of the Model 950, which was among the first products to offer Pro Logic II and the "triple crossover" bass management. I also think it's cool that the front panel design gives a nice tip of the hat to the RR2150.