I LOVE this kind of homework though!
Heck I'd already been eyeballing at least $1500 dollars worth of AV equipment (new reciever, Blu-Ray player), so if I could get all the stuff you listed for that much or less, then I'm WAY ahead of the curve. Because I'll have something I can upgrade incrimentally instead of hardware I'll have to throw away in a few years time.
Excellent, thanks for the info! Oh and Grunt, if that was you touting the bennefits of computer HT consoles, I'm sorry I didn't listen earlier... but my ears/eyes are WIDE open now!
Added a few more links and changed a couple for you. I've spent years on this stuff. If you have any questions or want to talk any of it out, just PM me