I am in the very same boat. I got my new TV in 2006, and it's time for a new receiver. My venerable DSP-A1 has served me for TEN YEARS now, and I'd like to upgrade.
I do NOT have a huge listening space, but I like the bells and whistles. Most of my limited research has shown that power increases as the # of features goes up. I wants the features, but 100W per channel at 7.1 is fine by me. More than that is wasted power
My requirements for the receiver are:
HDMI in(at least two in, preferably three or four)
HDMI out (only need one out)
Internal processing of dts-MA, TrueHD, and any other HD audio
DPL II
iPod
I wouldn't mind an video upscaler in the receiver, though I use my HD-A1 as my DVD player now. I'll be connecting the HD-A1 (for a while at least), my PS3, a Blu Ray player to be named later, and my XBOX 360 (Elite with HDMI) to it via HDMI. I primarily use it for movies. I use a pretty old set of speakers...Atlantic Technology 2500 (I think...from about 1996, THX cert, two subwoofers).
Anyways, I'm looking at Pioneer and Onkyo, but am open to anything. I have to spend less than $1800 or so.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Chuck