What non-Japanese brands are you considering? From what I've seen, the boutique manufacturers were completely stumped by HDMI, and are finally, nearly bringing gear to market. Where as the Japanese makers are on their 5th generation equipment. The high-end makes are also having the same teething problems (hand-shake/compatibility issues) as the Japanese did in the beginning, and have long worked out.
I'm not convinced that at the high-end the price increases are for much more than rack jewelry. With all digital inputs, and digital processing, there's nothing which can affect audible changes in the signal.
There are only a handful of DAC makers in the world. Baring some new breakthrough in PCM to analog voltage transformation, current delta-sigma designs are as good as the tech can get (of course the same was thought about oversampling, and then single-bit decoders in the past). There's much more in common between the various chips out there, than there is different.
Then there's the pre-amp stage. Again, only a handful of parts makers get used for these components. Anything more than a $100 HTiB is going to have inaudible levels of distortion and noise in this part of the signal path.
Last comes the amplification. This is where you'll find most of the design differences. How much difference they make is the big question. For people who think amps make a difference, separates are the way to go. As I've said above, get a good, competently designed pre/pro at a reasonable price which includes the inputs and processing features you want. Then the world's open to you as to which amps to pair with it.
I'm just saying, you've made the wise choice to go with a no-nonsense speaker maker. Don't go back on yourself and start believing the hype the esoteric equipment makers put out there. Trust your ears, not your eyes, or your wallet. Of course a demo at a dealer is going to paint the equipment in the best possible light. I think you'll be surprised if you could actually conduct a controlled, double blind listening test with the pre/pro being the only variable. There's good non-boutique stuff out there. It may not be as pretty, or cost as much, but those factors don't change the way it sounds.
