ZMass left out a detail that kept me from understanding his point for quite a while.

He's saying that seven channels of Denon draw 7.2 amps from the wall while two channels of separate power amp draw more than five amps. That totally implies that the separate power amp will have more output current than the Denon. But the Denon is drawing 864 watts while the power amp draws 660 - 960 watts for two channels. That might make the Denon look efficient or heroic while the power amp looks profligate. There's a device out there that sucks almost a toaster's worth of power out of the wall to deliver only 200 watts of power? I'll be a class A amp isn't even that inefficient.

All I can say is, there's so much unsaid and assumed about those numbers that I'd rather not argue them, even if they're true.

I've been through this recently, finding that amps in the 2x100 watt range all center on about a $700 price tag. Here's another approach: those amps are better built and more stable than the zone 2 amps in a receiver in more or less the same price range because
a) the receiver has to deliver more watts and do more things, therefore less money can actually get put into a beefy design, parts and power for just those two channels, and
b) separate power amps are not ALL overpriced -- it's not possible to bring out a product and price it way over its value. Prices on these would have fallen due to competition. My experience in this industry is that you get what you pay for* so it's reasonably safe to assume that a whole class of product at a particular price has a price representative of its real value based on what's in it.

*This does not, of course, go for products that are advertised so heavily that you can say they have "a story," or that little rhymes (no highs, no lows, etc.) have been written about. Those things are overpriced because some people go for a good story and a high price. And those things are overpriced across the brand. You don't find several brands of the same type of item being overpriced.

Expect better performance from a separate two-channel power amp than from two channels of an A/V receiver.

Oh, yeah, the separate amp also will be better ventilated, thus tending to last longer between fatal explosions.