The fact that it is large and runs hot should be looked upon as a good thing by potential buyers. It means the unit still has a decent amp section and that Onkyo hasn't gone to a cheaply implemented (and usually inferior sounding) Class-D design to save on costs and size. Receivers are becoming more and more about features than actual audio performance and sites like CNET which get taken seriously but don't have serious technical skills for actually testing the performance of these products is only making the situation worse.

For small rooms I would take a quality 2.0 audio setup over a cheap surround system any day. A competent integrated amp such as the Virtue ONE can produce a more enjoyable experience, especially with music, from a pair of good bookshelf speakers or slim towers than a swarm of cheap cube speakers powered by a mediocre receiver. I admit it can make integrating multiple sources more difficult, possibly requiring a passive pre-amp or other switch if the tv isn't capable of being the AV hub, but in terms of pure performance good 2.0 is better than mediocre 5.1 any day IMO.

Mmm, bass.

Love the smaller external HDDs.

Seeing the 5900 RPM spec forces me to wonder if the chosen spindle speeds on hard disks are chosen arbitrarily or not? Putting 8000-8500 RPM drive against competitors' 7200 RPM sounds like a good way to one up the competition, but then again maybe we would have seen the beginning of the hard drive RPM Wars from such a move.

Always wanted to audition a pair of Aperions.

This would probably be more useful than the Optimus Maximus actually.

I don't know about favorite, but the most memorable was the fairly recent news about Pioneer exiting the plasma business. A sad day for videophile geeks everywhere.

Touch!

The Vizio VO32 1080p models are a great bargain. Color accuracy, grayscale tracking and video processing are about the best you can find at the 32" size and it can double as a monitor if needed. Also has lots of inputs. Studies have shown Vizio is actually one of the most reliable TV brands on the market as well, contrary to public perception.

If you can't live with its somewhat limited viewing angle the Panasonic PZ85 series should be pretty cheap right now and is packing IPS-A panel technology. The color accuracy of Panny sets leaves something to be desired though.

The Samsung models (all of them pretty much) are also a safe middle of the road choice that is hard to fault. I would stay away from Sony (panel lottery, no better than Sammy yet more expensive), Sharp (quality has been dropping steadily for the last few years, uses outsourced low quality panels on all their cheaper tvs, crappy video processing), and of course all the other budget brands you can find cheap online. Westinghouse is probably the best known of the 3rd tier makers. Having owned one and personally seen a number of them fail I never recommend them anymore no matter how good the price may be.