I've said it before here, but I'll repeat it in this thread as well: I love my Onkyo TX-SR706. Going on three years now, and not one problem.

I moved up from a "budget" Panasonic receiver. My buddy has a nice Yamaha AVR that he paid well over $1,000 for some years ago. Nice unit, but the Onkyo has more useful features. The new ones are even better - the network stuff is really nice - for even less than I paid.