My dad did a lot of work with military spec electronics, and apparently in their testing, they found that it's better to pressurize (blow air into) and enclosure - and let it find it's way out - than to pull air out, as the air has a tendency to create "streams" and anything not in the path would lose heat more slowly. Of course, they did deal with much more powerful fans (and noise was not an issue).

I took a different tack. I replaced the glass front doors with perforated aluminum sheeting (aka decorative vent covering), and the fans are at the upper back of the cabinet. A tissue placed anywhere on the front of the cabinet shows that air pulls in evenly throughout the front, which gives me confidence that the heat is being pulled out the back appropriately.

Even after back to back reference level movie watching, my equipment is at most warm to the touch.