I'm not really sure why $100 would have stopped you from buying what you really wanted. If you spent many hundreds on the Onkyo, that's still plenty of money if the $100 is significant.

And your own free time goes into the equation, too. You can always stick a cheap, noisy washing machine in another room and close the door and no one's the wiser - but to spend $300-500 on a piece of equipment that you have to spend every second with and will either expand or limit your enjoyment - and NOT be satisfied - is really poor 'economics.'

It would seem your best bet now is to just bite the bullet - buy an Outlaw - and schlock the Onkyo - it will have cost you a 'bit' - but the lesson will have been well-learned. "Us poor folk don't have the resources to buy things twice - might as well get what we want the first time."