Well, I don't see why the Rio Reciever cannot compliment the home stereo instead of replace it. I'd personally rather not see a year old 3-4 thousand dollar stereo "gather dust"

Of course. You can plug a receiver into any stereo (it has line-level outputs), and it will sound great when played through it.

My point was that your complicated system of remotely-controlling a centralized multi-speaker stereo system can and should be completely replaced by a product like the receiver. You admitted yourself that the system was overly complex and difficult to maintain. Well, here's the answer, why not use it the way it was intended?

From your description, the Receiver is specifically meant to do the exact task that you're currently doing with the Rube Goldberg implementation, and it's meant to do it cleaner and simpler. No IR repeaters, no centralized control, no multi-speaker switching system. Just some little client boxes and some network cable.

You are the receiver's target market, you just don't know it yet.