Well,...looks to me that you're "Twice Lucky" Lucky to have won the M3s in the first place, and lucky that you had a chance to seriously listen to them!
I sure gotta agree with you on two points: You don't want to skimp out on the important items, and, if you want M60s, then you want M60s! Nothing else will fit!!
One thought would be to use that $800 on FO M60s and use one of the M3s as a center for the time being, that way you'll have something that sounds like a reasonable match up front until you can manage your VP150. Then use the two available M3s for surrounds until you can get your QS8s. If it takes a few years to get what you want, well, then it takes a few years. I ordered my first Axioms back in the early "SE" days and I'm still working on completing my system.(I measured to see if I could try one of my M50s inverted on top of my 65" Mits, but the TV is too tall, and the ceiling slopes down to where there's about a half inch interference! That's OK, the wife didn't care much for the "Smokestack coming out of the TV" look anyway! So I'll continue to use the inverted M3 as center, where, in my opinion it sounds "Great" reguardless.)
So consider yourself in reality "Thrice Lucky". Lucky that you didn't get the M40s! After all, that's not what you wanted!
Rich.
