Great peliminary analysis, gonk. I agree... very promising.
A comment and two questions: Though any form of virtual input (VI) will be welcome, I hope Outlaw implements two features at minimum beyond VI labeling. The first is the ability to map a single physical input to multiple VI's. This would be very useful for owners (like me) who use a multi-function HTPC as a source. Related to input mapping, it would also be nice if different default surround modes could be assigned to individual VI's. Outlaw could do a lot more beyond this with VI's, but these two features would suffice for me.
Questions: * Does anyone know if both HDMI outputs can be active at once? * Does anyone know if the 978 will be able to play FLAC files?