I'd be VERY interested in hearing your thoughts on the Primare I30 and Gallo 3.1 combo. I'm in a similar boat to you - difficult to demo locally and I end up having to demo when I travel interstate (in Australia). I've been v impressed with the Primare I30 and CD31 and am thinking seriously about it. Other contender at the moment seems to be the Creek Destiny.
To give back a little.. I recently added the SA to my system (NAD 352 integrated) as part of a gradual upgrade. I reckon whether or not to add the SA depends entirely on listening tastes primarily, but also room size etc. For me, it's a reasonably big room but I listen to a range of material. When testing, you need tracks playing real low stuff. In truth, I could live with the 3.1's performance sans SA, but Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy' is just not the same without it! Let me add a caveat - I'm still tweaking the many dials on the SA and don't feel I've got the best from it yet.