Onkyo "receivers" are getting quite popular here (Italy) because of the excellent price/quality ratio. As a metter of fact, on some pretty good magazines they often compare with much more expensive devices. I am looking to buy one of these, depending on what budget I'll end up with in the next future:

Onkyo PR-SC886
Onkyo TX-NR906
Onkyo TX-NR876

The big advantage of these ones is that they have two HDMI outputs, which offers space for a flat screen TV AND a projector, which I'd love to do in the long run.

In fact, as to video, I just gor a 46" Samsung which I love, so far (LE46A956 - LED becklighting). My idea was simply to get the larges I could fit, and with the best size/performances price ratio. Today that size seems to be in the 40-46 range. I am planning to add a projector + scree to the overall home theatre project, as I saw some full HD movies on a projector and I turned from scheptical to a fan of fullHD: the change in video quality was, to me, absolutely impressive.
The problem with a projector is that, of course, screen takes a LOT of space, and I could not keep it down all time and give up an entire wall for that. Also, no matter how good a projector is in these days, if your living room is not dark-ish, you are going to miss on contrast and brightness. So, TV+Projector seemed to be the best way to go.

As to media center, for now I just got a 200 Euro DB player together with my TV, and I am still considering either the Dell Studio Hybrid (see other thread) or to assemble one, completely fanless. The point is that this ig going to turn into a quite expensive system - 700 Euros or more - and so I am taking a bit more before I proceed with this.

And, I am only now trying to get some knowledge about speakers. They can be, of course, incredibly expensive, and, often, for no reason.