I've had somewhat mixed results, to be critical for this type of integrated connectivity approach. I'd say that A lot would , besides preamp quality, depend on the connection used (i.e, Dirrect bypass, dedicated HT passthrough -seen on a few pieces, auxilary input, tape, etc), and the quality there of.
I've had some high end pre's that seemed to add or subtract a little to the sound, while others (direct pass-through connect?) seem to do absolutely zero to affect the signal!
Honestly, however, mostly it's seemed negligible, as we're really only talking about left and right channels of digital movie content, for the most part.
Regardless of setup, I think you'd be hard pressed (as long as gains are matched, and no other issues, noise, whatever) to have anyone tell the difference, or have problem with sound quality vs all connected through the AV pre (HT duties) , instead of AV pre's L/R out's through the 2 ch pre, when switched in! Just saying. Benefits are probably going to outweigh any potential slight sound degradation quality in a less than ideal connectivity setup, vs some pure pass-through situation.
My experience anyway. Experiences and opinions may vary, obviously