The more I look at the front panel, the more I like it. That being said...

Is it just me or does the back panel of the 978 look just as sparse as the front?
There are five analog video inputs (three component + two composite)(not including the mandatory but arbitrary front panel composite+stereo RCA in), but only three analog stereo audio inputs. How exactly will I connect five analog AV devices, if such a need were to appear?
I have an antenna connected to my TV as well as a U-verse box connected to my receiver (sorry, NFL games still look better OTA here); the TV analog stereo outs use one set of ins on my current receiver. If I were to use this setup with the 978, I'm down to two legacy devices (presuming the 7.1 analog ins cannot be mapped to regular stereo ins). After AirTunes and Wii, I'm fresh out of analog ins. What about my DreamCast? I know that such a setup may be a bit of a stretch, but why include legacy inputs at all in that case?

Further, I have no devices that have 7.1 analog output that don't also have HDMI; I know some of you old fogeys have SACD or DVD-A players, but just sell them and get an OPPO already, I need more back panel space for additional HDMIs and more balanced outs!

Five HDMI inputs seems less than optimal or expected in a contemporary pre amp, although It seems that most of us would be hard pressed to really need more than five.

To the outputs: needless to say, most of us were at least hoping for, if not expecting, 9.x output; maybe the rec1 and/or rec2 can act as heights and/or wides? Wishful thinking here, boss.

While the back panel looks easy to navigate, I'd imagine that people buying Outlaw products have a pretty good sense of how to connect their devices; if you buy Outlaw, you're not also shopping WalMart or BestBuy for preamps or receivers. Outlaws buyers know the score and can likely handle a complex rear panel, no?

Maybe it's just me, but I've been wanting to move to separates, and have been waiting for the 978 to drop, hoping that it would leave a trail of 9.x breadcrumbs to the 998. If the 998 has the same feature set as the 978, excepting Trinnov, I'll be more than a little disappointed in the lack of 9.x or 11.x; the strange input issues aside, the output may be a deal breaker for me.