Alan is the man.
I know exactly what he means about a frankenstein system. Those were the days!
I had JBL es20 bookshelves with a soundstage (same oem of JBL) center and yamaha outdoor speakers with a DIY LCD projector lighting a blackout cloth screen.
I remember pulling apart dual polk subwoofers and stuffing them with polyfill to tweak them!
You learn so much doing it that way I found. Even though I never ended up with axiom gear, I've learned so much from coming here and reading his articles over the last decade or so.
Alan is the man.