I completely understand what you are saying pappa and I know that my frustrations are pretty trivial in comparison to what other people are facing out there. My simple issue is that whole step process when it comes to technology when it comes to home theater and the such. I do see the reasons as far as televisions go and will prbably buy me a bigger lcd here pretty quick because I can see a major difference in video quality. But when home theater companies completely change the audio formats every couple of years you are either forced to buy external processing or buy another pre/pro or receiver taking the chance that you will not like the features or the sound quality in the most important area of the unit, the musical playback sound quality.
I love the fact that with audio systems when you are looking around at new speakers, preamps,power amps, or source component you are usually either replacing a broken component or you have saved the bones for an upgrade and thats the fun of it. you can love what you have and be satisfied with it even though there might be better out there. With home theater its either it works or its not compatable and if it is compatable for how long is that format going to be good for before it gets replaced by another format as top dog and then when you go to the audio shop to look at speakers they are trying to tell you how much better that format is and how much you need it. I think its all a repeat customer brainwash and frankly the whole thing makes me want to sell my yamaha, rear speakers, center channel, keep my power amp, my modified main speakers, By a quality preamp and cd player and spend the money off of selling all that to upgrade my music system and say to h#$% with Home theater!