Interesting news... Lately I'm beginning to doubt that we'll even see the 978 being released.

I've been thinking about this very likely possibility lately. Outlaw has a fairly close business relationship with Marantz. They must know or have an idea of what's coming down the pipeline from Marantz. With those rumors of an AV7007 and AV8007, I'm left wondering if Outlaw's silence and lack of communication may just be a holding strategy until those products from Marantz become available at which point Outlaw would announce that they won't be releasing the 978 and that they'll instead sell those two processors from Marantz that cover the same price point as the 978 and beyond.

I mean they missed a window of opportunity for releasing the 978 when there was a certain void in the market at that quality to price point ratio. Now they may find themselves competing against a new similarly priced product from Marantz with more features and perhaps improved SQ WRT it's predecessor (AV7005), a SQ difference that may have become marginal between the upcoming AV7007 and the 978. So Outlaw may be wondering if the amount of units they're going to sell would warrant a full production run or become a financial disaster.