i think most of the money should go towards speakers myself, that's where you get your quality from.. As long as teh receiver has a good power output, the sound isn't going to change much from one to the other. where as, getting the right set of speakers is CRUCIAL to the sound... jus sayin. subwoofer being ONE of the most important things.
that is of course unless you get a TUBE receiver, but you can't get a good one of those for under 1k, so spend the extra money on the speakers.