Murph, you still get the sound from behind you, it is just not located in one spot like a direct radiating speaker, the QS's tend to blend with the sides a little more and you would be surprised at how much actually comes through them, especially with action movies. I do think that direct radiating designs have more impact for some scenes like bullets and such, but when the scene moves to a more generalized sound the direct radiating design doesn't do as well as the QS's.
Another perspective I have is that if you are going 6.1, like I have, the QS8 is the only way to go. I tried a direct radiating speaker and the rear channel was just too locateable and left a hole between the side surrounds, I would guess the 7.1 set up would eliminate this hole I was sensing.
