In terms of getting the best possible sound out of your system, Soundhound's and Smart Little Lena's posts are definitely a good start.

As for the "simplicity and 950" issue, it is a bit intimidating but I think we've had good luck with our setup. My wife uses the system mainly for watching TV (digital cable) and some DVD watching. I have all of my video sources in s-video, so the 950's switching takes care of everything -- the only command that goes to the TV is power on/off. One thing I did was create two macros on the 950's remote (which I am using to control everything): "M1" on the 950's remote turns in the 950, TV, and digital cable box and puts the remote and 950 in the "CBL" (video3) mode. "M2" turns all three devices off. We leave the digital cable in Pro Logic II (the 950 will remember the last processing mode used for each input). The CD player is on whenever the system is on (it actually used to always be on, as there is no remote power command for it, but not it is on a switched outlet on a Panamax MAX5100) -- all you have to do is select the "CD" button on the 950 and you are ready to go (in stereo mode). If she wants to watch a DVD, she uses the "M1" to get the system on, pops a disc in the DVD player, and hits the "DVD" button on the 950's remote. If I use the DVD player as a CD transport, I have two macros -- one to switch to the 950's 6-channel analog input (for DVD-Audio) and one to switch to the AUX2 input (which is set to use the DVD player's digital input, but is left in "stereo" rather than surround processing -- easier than toggling out of surround mode and then having to get back into surround the next time a disc is watched). If we use the VCR (rarely), that input is set up for Pro Logic II, and since it is an S-VHS VCR it's using s-video inputs, so I don't even have to use the 950's composite to s-video conversion.

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