I've used seperates for most my life, and they are the way to go. My new room required little space, and little budget so I've been trying to find a receiver that suits my needs...so far, not so good. The power/sound combination just isn't the same on a receiver. Of course the flip side is that seperates were much easier to come by years ago at decent prices with newer seperates being mostly $$$.
It's all fine to say keep your power amps, and just upgrade the preamp in the future, but at least in my case, there just wasn't a lot of preamps available that were decently priced if I wanted to go that route. Most preamps tend to cost more then receivers these days which begs the question why not just get a receiver.
