...
I would need to build a new house and have them dig down an extra 2 feet in the theater area to make room for everything...
You can always get Bose cubes
Seriously... I too think that it would be a very long time until I'll upgrade to anything more than 7.1, which as you pointed out it only started to become the norm very recently.
I personally see it as a money-grab of sorts; I would be a lot happier with the studios taking more time and investing more money into mixing the tracks properly into 7.1, or even 5.1 for that matter. Just last night I watched a DVD
from the Superbit collection (Underworld) and it's 5.1 DTS track is phenomenal. It's a shame the Superbit guys didn't get into BR.