Some quick thoughts:
Sad to hear of a dislike for the Squeezebox since I love mine so much. Of course, I have an older model that starting to look archaic until iPod/IPad, remote control integration turned it into a high tech. toy again.
Sonos seems to be the popular choice for dedicated units these days and the multi-room ability is a bit more refined. The price is still hard to swallow though.
Maybe now that receivers are maturing through the streaming world, investigating some solutions for a new receiver might be worth a look as well.
I like the mental bump of being able to send FLAC as a pure digital source all the way through my house right to the receiver but if I had to start over, I'd be torn.
Also, with laptops becoming so cheap, you can pick up a dedicated music library/player for almost next to nothing these days. Get something with a touch screen for the flare factor or just add a Bluetooth remote to operate it from across the room.
