I under stand your point, and I'm looking at it from this perspective. While I haven't heard the Denon with the Axioms yet, it really seems that seperates do offer some advantages over combined A/V receivers. Everything from quality sound, upgrade options, and more range and depth in the total speaker playback with the higher amps.
That being said, the reason I'm thinking about the Denon as a pre is I can't find anything out their in a seperate that has all the inputs, video upconversion, and quality sound but still is under $1,000. Even more, it seems all the seperates don't emphasise all those features of the Denon until you get to $2,000 or more.
I probably don't know enough about seperate pre's, but if someone can point me to a good one or two that can do all those features, I'm highly interested. This will be a 50/50 theater/music setup, and if I can get the software upgbrade feature too, that would seal the deal.
Thanks for the question, I guess it does seem strange to spend that kind of money only to use half the product.
