What's the reason for your opposition to a real 5.1 setup? It's really the way to go. It does look a little goofy and you've got to have the right space to set it up properly, but it really is nice.

If you want to go inexpensive, I've gotten three sets of these for people I've built systems for, and I've been pretty impressed by them considering how cheap they are (which is about $20 cheaper than about 4 months ago!).

If you want really nice speakers, I'm partial to Klipsch, though I'm sure everybody might have their own suggestions. I've had the original ProMedia 4.1 system for over 4 years now, and they're still going strong and sounding beautiful.

(ps- thanks for bringing up Zalman again. I hadn't seen their redesigned site. thank goodness they finally got around to doing that!)