Xenon:

On one level I understand what you are saying but the fact is that making changes to firmware is not really any easier for the "big guys" than it is for the little guys. It really comes down to the firms that make the chips failing to put sufficient information out regarding how to actually make all the features work. Some of that is due to wrong documentation, others suffer from failing to actually consider how much the real world operation of these features work when trying to support hundred or thousands of options. The industry has far too few people willing to take on the hard work of increasing the ease of programming their devices. Sadly lots of projects from firms like Yamaha, Sony and Bose get delayed or cancel too, and the reason often is that the development costs outstrip any potential revenue that the firms can anticipate in a sector that increasingly has very little room for anything but the "highest end" electronics.

From the info that Peter T shares it is likely that whatever issues are still to be tackled are not so severe as to doom the whole firm; at least his other ventures continue to release new products, which is something that once high flying firms only wish they could do -- http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Atlant...-Speakers.shtml vs http://www.cepro.com/article/kaleidescape_is_shutting_down_interview_with_ceo_cheena_srinivasan