Advice for speakers and receiver for $2000-3500

I'm going nuts trying to read reviews and forums and adsensed-crazy blogs. Please give me your advice.
The roommate moved out and only left the screen up and Optima projector mounted to the ceiling. I need a receiver and speakers. I want an expandable theater and will eventually add a PC (prolly mac-mini) server to store media but right now I just gotta get back to watching DVDs with huge sound!
I know it's not important, but I wanna stay away from bookshelf-style speakers. I like the look of towers. The room is about 30ftx45ft. I figure $1000 on a receiver and $2000 on surround speakers. I guess 7.1 is "in"right now... I don't want to half-ass it, but can't drop 10 grand either. What do you think? Thanks a lot!

That is a very large room. Take a listen first to some sensitive (sensitive=plays loud with less power) speakers. Klipsch would be the most sensitive if you can tolerate the sound. Paradigm is not nearly as sensitive as Klipsch but are still more than most and should sound pretty good. You are also going to need two subs. There are some huge subs that might work a room that size but it would be actually cheaper to get two regular subs.

If the speakers are sensitive enough you might be alright with a large Onkyo, Marantz, Denon or Pioneer Elite. If it was me I'd try to work separates into the budget. I have no personal experience with this but online brands like Emotiva could set you up with separates for not much more than $2k. You might also price Rotel and NAD separates. An outboard power amp with it's own power supply will give you more drive than an internal amp will from a receiver. Some people will also buy a receiver that has preamp outputs and add an outboard power amp to that to keep to a tighter budget. You could always buy just a receiver, make sure it has the preamp outputs, and if you feel later you need more power then you could add the amp as funds become available again.

Another option would be to go used. You mentioned DVD, if you have not yet gone Blu-ray and not in the near future an older, pre HDMI, preamp could be gotten for cheap on Audiogon. These preamps are backward compatible with Blu-ray, to what extent depends on what you are looking at and what features/inputs it offers. On the other hand, if needing gear it may not make sense to buy used just to upgrade to something more modern at a later date. It really depends on how you feel about Blu-ray and other HD video sources. How important would HDMI be? How important would the new HD audio formats be if I did go Blu?

are you looking for home theater only or will this also be used for music?

Peabody has some great suggestions up there already