It is worse in the sense that you will get a wider range of opinions and more "love/hate" comments. On the other hand, it's much harder to go wrong when you're buying a receiver.
HK's seem to have a bit higher incidence of failure in the first few weeks (don't know why) but after that they seem to be pretty much bulletproof. I don't think you can go wrong with Denon, HK, Yamaha or Marantz.
HK's bass management is still more flexible than anything else on the market; the only oddity is that if you have full-range mains but no sub they won't let you route LF from center and surround to the mains.
I don't know which has the best remote, but the HK seems to be a bit counter-intuitive to me. Everyone here seems to be going for those aftermarket 33-in-1 remote / blender / microwave it slices it dices MX700 things anyways.
Don't sweat it. Pick the one that appeals to you the most, and get it from a reputable source in case you have any problems.
The mutant thing is gonna happen whenever you get into a "cult hobby" like audio, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
