i recently become interested in outlaw 978/998, especially in the 998 because of trinnov, i won't get a new system for a while so hopefully at least model 978 will come out(am am sure audyssey xt32 pro is great as well). i don't care about networking or poor quality streaming like spotify. i have read that 978 will have a "audiophile" phono stage and on board ad converter, this is pretty usefull since i then only need a turntable in order to rip winyl, since the quality of vinyl decreases by usage it's pretty valuable being able to get a digital version of the album on my pc. i know model 978 has coax s/pdif output, however that requires a pc with spdif input(some motherboards has internal coax spdif input) and coax spdif cable(added cost). being able to send audio over usb would be valuable.

many pc:s today lacks hdmi output but almost all has usb. having bout audio and video over usb 3.0 would be even better but i don't expect that.

As for video processing i havn't found a single unit that fits me, my next monitor will be atleast 2560*1440, i would like to have 3840*2400. But amost all receivers and prepros is limited to 1080p which is becoming very outdated. Even laptops has 1080p these days. Ipad 3 has 2048*1536. Converting and processing for every single resulution up to 4096*3072(and all lover resulutions) will make the prepro futureproof.

There is no such thing as "state if the art video processing up to 1080p". Spending $$$ on video processing for a low quality 1080p monitor is just stupid, these money is better spent on the monitor, i hopes outlaw 998 will be better at this point. As for 978 the right thing to do is to get it out so soon as possible. Changing anything this late is a terrible idea.