When my 7200 died on me, I went through this same mental process as you. I ended up buying the 7300 as I couldn’t be without sound for several weeks while waiting for the 7200 to be looked at (was a blown fuse).
I’m wishing I would have done what you did though. IE: inexpensive AVR for a pre-pro and a set of amps to drive the speakers. Now I have a $1300 AVR that is already outdated and I’m buying a stand alone video processor, so the 7300’s DCDI won’t even be used.
To the 7300’s credit though, it does significantly improve my SD satellite feed. It also has a better scaller than my current dvd player via component.
