Does anyone have a good recommendation for the best quality home theater platform?

Sooooo......Who knows whatever happened to the guy that posted this thread?  I replied back on 1/27 and now a couple of more comments, but the facilitator of this thread is nowhere to be found?

To @maxwave27 , Dave and Troy are correct!  What good is the sound from movies in a surround system if they're not intelligible?  It's way more than effects and I'm sorry that you feel, and sound, like you got taken.  However, mistakes made can be from a lot of different factors; was this all you (on your own) making these conclusions, or was it a poor dealer who lead you down the wrong path?  And I'm not saying that you doing it on your own was a bad thing, but, more just wondering how you came to such a negative opinion about Surround vs. Stereo?   Both have their place - pluses and minuses.

I remember watching Last of the Mohicans on a really good home theater setup. Early on when they first come upon the cabin at night you see the family inside and you hear Chingachkuk calling out something from a distance. I watched it a couple times, never could quite make it out. Until watching it again, same movie, only on my stereo, and you can hear him call out quite clearly, "John Cameron."

That is the first you hear of the Camerons name. But not the last. The Camerons host the town meeting, and are later killed and burned out. Which you would never know if you watch it on a home theater. But you will if you watch it on a stereo.

Home theater, the whole 5.1 schtick, is a crock.

My takeaway from Last of the Mohicans is that having a tomahawk in my skull is on my list of least favorable ways of dying. 

To Millercarbon272's comment:

A great surround system is no different than a great stereo: they will reveal the differences in recording quality between movies you watch - no budget is the same for any two films when they are mixed, mastered, EQ'd, engineered and produced like no budgets for music being recorded in the studio are the same. The better the system is, the more it reveals the differences in how they were recorded. Stereo in two channels, surround in more...Which version of The Last of the Mohicans did you hear?  Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS Master HD 5.1?  

I'm sorry that no one has ever been able to show you a truly great surround system, but it also sounds like you are completely locked into your opinion that stereo is the end all for movies.  I'm not knocking stereo, I'm a fan!!  But to say surround is a crock is like saying the corvette is the best car ever to drive.  It is, until you drive something better, however, once peoples minds are made up, doesn't matter at that point because you'll justify your opinion by any means necessary at which point, nothing else will matter.  I simply say, which I've told hundreds of people who've only heard mediocre or bad systems; you've just never heard a good one and I'm sorry that you haven't.