Snake-oil salesman are rampant in many areas of marketing... I play trumpet, and there's always some New Great Thing that will improve your playing to the level of (insert famous player here). Musical instruments, cars, medicine, all sorts of electronics, you name it. How many people really notice if the latest 25 M-pixel camera is better than last year's or the competitions 22 M-pixel model? An AVR is sooo much better because this model puts out 115 W and the lower model only 110 W (I actually got the line from a salesman; my attempts to explain why that didn't matter fell on deaf ears, bigger must be better right?) Caveat emptor was never more important than now when so much unvetted information is available so freely -- it is almost impossible to tell valid claims from completely outrageous, especially in an area you (I) know almost nothing about.