After reading all this I'm still on the fence as to whether the move to 7.1 makes sense for me.

Not meaning to hijack your thread, but if you look at picture 7 in my shutterfly book, you can see where my current surrounds are located (they're the black bipoles on the wall). I would transition those to rear surrounds and then add new L/R surrounds on speaker stands and shoot them at the seating area roughly over top of where the brass lamps flank the sofa. Both room contraints and WAF (wife acceptance factor) mean I'm locked into this set up. That being the case, is 7.1 a waste of time and money???