"Talk to me, babe... Emotiva and Onkyo have proven it can have some bugs but be better than the competition and sell well..."
I, for one, don't want to be on the wrong side of a beta test with my purchase. I've had the 975 for quite some time now, three+ years, and its not given me many problems. Yes, the occasional times when I have to use a deoxidizing cleaner on the HDMI jacks, but that's a given with HDMI jacks.
When the 976 does come out, I want it to be in my system for at least as long, with no aggravating issues to put up with, other than the occasional HDMI jack cleaning.