onavi,
I take it this system will be primarily for home theater, correct? In that case a front center channel is rather important. A subwoofer is also pretty important for movie watching, less so for music. I'd recommend both. As for your wife's dislike for boom cars well, just tell her...
As a new owner of the RX-V2200 I can say that it's a pretty sweet sounding receiver. It has plenty of power to drive all but the most demanding of speakers. And in general, more power is better, as long as it's clean which the Yammie is at 0.04% THD.
I can tell you that Yamaha makes a very...