That's a tough one. I've used both Pioneer and Denon mid to upper range in price units, and they both are complicated to understand at times. I see your delima. I don't know of any Home Theater in a Box solutions where you supply your own speakers. If there isn't such a thing, perhaps there should be. So hopefully, someone else would know more on this subject than I do.
I had purchased an ultra cheap Sony 100 watt per channel receiver as my first one for $150 online from Newegg.com about 4 years ago to drive my M22's I had then. This was a mistake because the components in this thing were so cheap that effectually, it probably was only about 40 watts and could barely drive the smaller speakers, but it was the least complicated of few I've used.
One other option is perhaps to get someone to set it up for you. Using a Harmony remote. With these remotes, you can set up activities, such as watch TV, play DVD (and blu-ray), Listen to radio. Then when things get out of whack, cycling everything down and back up will usually take care of it. At the extreme, manually turn everything off, unplug if necessary. Remove battery, then reinsert into remote, and you should be good to go again.
Hope this helps, and good luck to you.
