I'm a firm believer in "TANSTAAFL" - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you compare a good quality product like the 990 to a good quality product costing three or four times as much (like the AVM30), you are going to sacrifice something. The AVM30 offers more user adjustments and tweaks and uses a more expensive DSP section (Motorola instead of Cirrus), for example. The two factors that make an option like Outlaw remain appealing are total cost (save two grand on the processor and you may be able to spend more on speakers, or you may be able to afford separates when you otherwise couldn't) and value (by focusing on getting the basic needs right - which in the case of Outlaw might be clean and uncolored sound, essential processing modes done right, sufficiently robust bass management to allow the most from the variety of speakers found in most home theaters, and an appearance and user interface that isn't overly cluttered or complicated). It helps that as you move beyond offerings like Outlaw, you start getting deeply into the realm of diminishing returns: each extra few hundred dollars spent starts yielding smaller and more subtle changes. At that point, a poor setup can obliterate all of those improvements.