grislybutter: that's an interesting sort of rule of thumb, do you recall who gave you the advice?
my budget would probably walk that line, so i guess that doesn't help that much.
the obvious future plan i guess would be to build off of what i have, for example, i have a parasound phono amp, i could eventually save up and get the matching pre and power amp or something like that, but as i was reading reviews, looking at my options, just generally getting a lay of the land as far as options in that price range, it occurred to me that for the same price as the couple of separates, i could get an integrated from somebody perhaps a little more exotic that i wouldn't otherwise have had on my list of options, and it got me curious as to whether people thought one option was definitively superior to the other or if it was more contentious.
i appreciate everyone weighing in with any personal experience they might have had.