You'll be so happy. And I don't think you have to spend a huge amount of money on a receiver, either. My philosophy is firmly in the camp of speakers make the most difference in your sonic enjoyment, and get good quality source components that have the features you value. Get the Axioms and get a $500US (or less) receiver that does what you want it to do.
In particular, I just got a Denon 1804 from 6ave.com. They were out of the 1803 and upgraded me to the new model for the same price, which was $299 plus 0.06 shipping. It sounds very good and has the feature set I wanted. I also strongly considered budget priced receivers from Yamaha, Marantz, Onkyo and HK. They all had strengths and weaknesses at my price point.
IMO, it takes time, very critical listening and inordinate money to actually hear a difference between mid-priced receivers and high-priced ones.
I'm sure others will be along to convince you that a bigger investment now is money well spent. And they might be right. But I'm really happy because I get to enjoy good quality 5.1, on-screen display, S-Video switching, etc. right now, with a built in upgrade path to 7.1 (and/or zone 2) when I want it.
