Heath,
lots of great advice from the regulars on the board here. I'd certainly lean towards what JohnK suggested off the top - consider forgetting about the center channel and go "phantom". The main reason for having a center channel is not improved sound, but that it anchors the sound to the viewing screen. In other words, if you don't have a center channel, and move to say the left side of the room, the voices will appear to be coming from the left speaker - not the tv screen as was intended. However, if you sit at or near the center of the screen without a center channel, the voices will be well anchored in the middle of the screen. That would save you $240 for the VP100 or $385 for the VP150. At the very least it would be worth trying it like this for the first while and if you feel you are missing something down the road, hopefully you'll have the cash to add a center.
The other suggestion i'd make is that you may want to look at the Pioneer receivers a little more closely. The
Pioneer VSX-1015TX. Lots of power and features and you should be able to find it just a bit cheaper than similar Yamaha receivers (at least it seems to be here in Canada was $500 Cdn on Boxing Day). Hopefully that will save you antother couple of bucks or so.
Plus make sure to look for you speakers in the Factory Outlet section on the website. That will get you a 10% discount. That is $84 savings on a pair of M22s and QS4s. Speakers would come to $756 + receiver should put you just over the $1000 mark. Leaves you some room to do some sub shopping.
Good luck!
