Yup, and when it comes down to it, none of the new features are really necessary to create a very good home theater experience.

And other than Onkyo/Integra, what other manufacturer has a prepro out that supports HDMI 1.3 and all the lossless multichannel formats and costs less than $2000?

Given that there's only one other prepro that does all that near Outlaw's price range, I think that the Outlaws have plenty of breathing room for the moment to come out with a high quality product that has all the bells and whistles that one would expect from a modern day product.

Personally, I'd rather see them deliver a product that was a few months later than expected but was less quirky than the 990 while still delivering the sweet sound quality.