Mark,
Yes, I do agree with you about all the tremendous amounts of dsp modes that come with the unit. Some of those modes though do help... even though one might not use all the music modes, the sure do help with the tv modes.. especially if people don't like the dolby prologic sound. On most programs, only the center is the one producing all the sound.. yes it is true that there isn't any information in the background for the rears to fire up, but the general population do like it. Believe me when people spend money and time installing these rears speakers, they do want to hear something out of them!! If you don't like the modes, well.. guess what.. the new RXV1 flagship receiver will have over 55 surround modes!!! Hey at least their receivers actually sound pretty good with standard 2 channel and multichannel encoded music.

John