Jeff,
It does sound like you're a fanboy. Nothing wrong with that. The biggest thing that would deter me from going this route is if the quality of the blu-ray rips is not as good as watching the actual blu-ray. Have you compared the two? Can you notice any difference in video or audio? On my test machine which is not hooked up to my HT I've been playing around with WMC7. I used a lot of third party tools descrived here:
http://www.windows7htpc.com/ It all works really well, but this is on a pc hooked up to a 24: LCD and a pair of klipsh speakers. My current pc does not have HDMI out so I can't see what it would all sound like on my HT.
Well I could be wrong but "bits is Bits" for audio bitstreaming to my Onkyo for HD Audio. to me "incredible". I got a Samsung B4600? Bluray player, after a week or two, took it back I can't see a difference in Video quality from my HTPC, once again, "bits is bits". My display is 1080P 120hz Samsung. And I think since I moved to 64 bit/8gb ram/SSD Drive, the HTPC loads quicker than the BD Player when loading a movie
I think the answer is .. get enough power and quality in your parts and don't try to save $20 bucks on a processor or less memory, etc.
But I haven't seriously compared a lot, but I'm VERY HAPPY, and think you would be also.
My friends with components, truely are blown away by my system.. On all fronts... Audio, Video, interface and convenience. But you have to take into consideration the Axioms and display quality compared to some of theirs theirs, etc.
I've got a lot of speaker output in a small space and a 52" screen seating 6.5' away
