Your thoughts on preamp/processors

Ok, what are your thoughts on this?

I have a EAD Ovation. I love it, it sounds awesome, looks great, but is a huge pain. If you are not familiar with EAD, their products do not have any buttons on the front.

So here is the issue, the batteries in the remote died while I was away on a business trip and when my wife put new batteries in, it dropped all the codes. Now it does nothing, not even volume up or down. I contact noble and they offer a remote for $275. While I debated on this, I bought a harmony universal figuring I can use it in another room if it didn't work. I was surprised, but they had EAD Codes in their online database.

So, now the unit works with the universal remote. However now my wife is even more confused by the system and it seems everytime I am away on business, she cannot operate this component. I have a 3 year old and he has no patience, this only frustrates the whole situation as she is trying to figure it out, he is bugging her in the background.

Do I just ditch the thing and get a new unit with a volume knob and traditonal buttons on the front?

Is there anyhing that can compare to the sound quality?

Is it smart to buy a unit that does not have HDMI?

I do have a seperate 2 channel music room, but even with that, I find I listen to quite a bit of music in this room as well as DVD Concerts.

I have FOCAL SPEAKERS, HD DVD Player and Pioneer Plasma in the room where the Preamp processor will go...

Sorry that was so long...help me out here.