>>Wouldn't it be detrimental to have speakers that have completely different builds, different drivers, different tweeters, and drastically different specs (in terms of sensitivity) across the front? Again, I may be over thinking that...but if I am, then every person I've talked to is over thinking it because that seems to be a universal recommendation...

Matching the mains and center is always important, but the important thing is to match the sound... matching the brand makes that easier but it's not the only way to go.

If you're mixing great mains with a crappy center that would be a problem, but the B&W and Axiom brands both aim for the same sound so I don't think you would have a problem living with the B&W center for a while.

In case it helps, I ran with matched fronts and mismatched surrounds for a while and still found that listening to music in anything but stereo didn't sound right. It wasn't until I put M2s (then later QS8s) in as surrounds that I enjoyed listening to music in 5.1.

I think the B&W center will be fine with the Axioms, particularly for HT (you're probably going to want to do serious music listening in 2.0 or 2.1 anyways) -- I wouldn't rush into replacing the center for a while.

Again, we're not saying that matching center and mains isn't important, just that they probably *will* match pretty well even though they are from different mfgs.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8