I find for TV that the centre is more than enough, even for stuff which is labelled as 5.1 almost nothing comes out of the fronts anyway. And for alot of TV which is dialog heavy having srround is completely unecessary (for me). Obviously properly encoded DVD/Bluray is another matter entirely.
In terms of having the AMS hooked up to the pre-outs of the HT processor but leaving it turned off, do you see any problem with the HT still trying to send signal to the AMS? ie. an electrical current is being sent but not used. Could this pose any issues to the AMS?
Something to play around with when the Akurate arrives. The more I think about it though the more appealing I find the idea of a separate music/HT set-up. The simplicity of source/amp/speaker for music without having anything else connected (even if turned off). In some ways its more wife friendly & in others not.
After my incident I have been looking at trying to minimise the number of devices rather than keep adding, but its hard......