If you're on a budget (still paying off the 2nd mortgage taken out to pay for the bluray player?)
Got myself a Yamaha htr6060 for $500 in Canada) recently and it's helped make some purdy sounds with my speakers. Has quite alot of features the more expensive ones don't. Does quite well for the price.
Although you don't NEED to connect your video through an AVR it is quite handy if for no other reason than not requiring you to have 12 remotes to change outputs.

What does this button do?