how deep would you guess that recess is 2-3'? I have M60's and my speakers are 14 3/8" away from the wall, and my VP180 is 12 1/4" away from the wall... That is measured the closest point of the speaker to the wall. The M60's are toed in..
If i had just bought a house with a room like that, i would do like you said, make the TV area bigger, keeping it in the center. Then i would get rid of the L/R shelving area's. I would also put some cloth material on the L/R recesses so that the speakers are not inside a tunnel, I may or may not keep the top 2 shelves on the L/R. You may/may not need that shelving for components/or dvd's.. If you have no use fr them, then i would get rid of those shelves.. how large are the shelves behind the glass doors? if they are about 19" now, when you rebuild the area, you will loose some of that room.. Which may result in your being creative with the wiring for your receiver/processor/amps/DVD player, what ever components you are using in that room. Do you have a center channel? For that size of a room a VP160/180 would be ideal in my opinion as that is a pretty big and open room. Again, if it were me, i would attempt to keep my VP180 about 12" from the wall, and try not to box it in to much.
Not knowing what speakers you already own, or if you do own any for this room makes any advice kind of difficult. If you do not already own speakers, i would say go with all incabinet speakers, as it will make your life easier when "rebuilding" that wall... just make the correct size holes for the speakers, slide them in and done.
