I too would vote for fixing it since it is a nice piece of gear. On caveat though is that I myself have shyed away from Onkyo/Integra because of their flaky hdmi boards. I have myself been eyeing a separate pre/pro and looked at Integra but I found many cases of failed HDMI boards with them on the internet. I am now saving my pennies in hopes of finding a Marantz AV8801 with Multi EQ XT32 I can afford/justify. Still if you can fix it for 250 you will likely get top dollar for it.
A few months ago, I purchased the new Pre-Pro from Yamaha, CX-A5000 and I compared it the Marantz 8801, ultimately picking the Yamaha because like you, I have owned Yamaha stuff before, liked it alot and in this comparison specifically with comparable features it was overall a significantly better value for the money AND a full FOUR year warranty.
I have come close to buying the CX but it doesn't do front wides or heights and I don't want to/cant change my speaker arrangement. I agree it is a great value considering what a av8801 is going for. There was one on ebay last nite for auction with buy it now and I hesitated and during the night someone bought it with buy it now for 2g which is half price. I was going to follow the bidding and see if I could get it cheaper and lost out.
In my case the front wide speaker deal was never much of an interest to me anyway. Obviously a matter of taste, however, I, myself, have always preferred the Yamaha DSP "presence" set-up(mine is 9.2 channels,front elevated speakers)because unlike the front wide/height kind of "faux" extra channels in the Onkyo/Marantz units, the fully adjustable "movie theater" programs in particular in the Yamaha, even in a relatively small room, can provide the listener the perception of a much larger movie theater size experience. Also, with the CX-A5000, if I wanted to utilize all 11.2 channels, I can have all the channels working at the same time.
Since I have a large, yet, pretty dead sounding room the Yamaha gives me a sound I realistically couldn't achieve with any of the other set-ups, (i.e additional speakers and channels, yet, most importantly, still limited by the size of the space).
Incidentally, if I quoted your numbers correctly, when it first was announced, the MSRP of the CX-A5000 was $2999 not $4000. I bought mine when it first came out brand new in the box for $2400.
