Twistybox: It was my understanding that the 990 went out of production because parts became unavailable. However, I agree with the general thrust of you post and agree that we should have seen a 990 Model 2.

Certainly Inkel could have done this because Sherwood markets a R-772 receiver which seems to have 990 type features (not talking about sound quality) with HDMI. In addition, they sell the R-972 (the 997 equivalent) and the R-977 (a Networking receiver which feature-wise seems similar to the Marantz line).