I guess everyone has their own tastes in sound. I've yet to hear a Theil speaker that I didn't like. They require a bit of extra care in setup and front-end electronics to shine, though. Also, older Thiel speakers can be brutal to drive. They are generally inefficient, and can dip lower than 4 ohms, which will give some amplifiers fits - particularly if you like it loud. Not too many receivers will handle the load of a complete Thiel HT setup (even the easier to drive, newer ones), and fewer still would sound decent driving them (and I don't know of one that will drive such a setup to reference levels). If you have even moderately weak upstream electronics, you'll know right off with the Thiels.

This is another reason why I'm looking at other speaker options. The Thiels require (demand, even) uber-high quality amplification and front end to shine. My best amps are Rotel RMB-100s (mono-blocks), not the high-end stuff they have in the HT store used to demo the speakers. New amplifiers are not in the budget. The Rotels may sound good with the Thiels, but it won't be AS good as what I heard in the store, thus I will be disappointed until I can afford $X-thousand dollars to upgrade all the upstream electronics. I see an ugly and expensive cylce being started. Not that the Axioms wouldn't benefit from higher quality front end electronics, but from what I'm reading in here, they don't demand it up front as the Thiels would.

So far, unless convinced otherwise, I'm leaning towards the M60s. In addition to saving a lot of money, Axiom also has a real surround speaker. The Thiel bookshelf speaker would work, but I doubt I'd get the enveloping sound that the Axiom surrounds would give me.

I guess the real question is whether I need the VP100 or VP150 center. I'm thinking the VP150 would be a better match for the M60s. Also, what are the main differences between the two surround offerings? I'm leaning towards the QS8s, but only because the drivers match those found in the center channel speakers (at least in size), and the extra bit of bass extension may allow for better blending with the rest of the system.