I would have to disagree with Slumpbuster on the Sony Recievers. the new generation, while a right pain to set up - i.e the menu system sucks - sound pretty darn good and do offer a lot of functionality for the money. I bought my father-in-law a Sony receiver for about $800 new about five months back, and its working well. It doesn't touch my Yami RX-Z9, but then there's a huge price difference. On HDMI switching; its convenient but not absolutely necessary. I'm eying up a scaler at the moment which has component to HDMI switching capability.