I can't help but think that a lot of the problem is that there is a kind of doldrums going on now in equipment-land. Noone knows if any of the new formats will succeed - there's little indication that any will - but the uncertainty has the effect of chilling the existing format. Add to that a cooling economy , the fairly lame state of 'popular' (read: dominated by huge multinational companies) music, the huge success of MP3 and home theater. So what's a poor magazine like Stereophile to do? I agree this issue was about a 10 minute read, but it seems to me that if your premise is that 2 channel is just fine, you're left with a hell of a lot of gear that's been out for a while which does the job beautifully (no news there) and the sad but moot discussion of SACD vs. DVDaudio (moot because neither will likely succeed). I think that better information on these issues (1.what equipment, old and new, works best and has the most value? and 2.are the new products any good?) can be found in discussion forums like this or audioasylum, taking things with a great many grains of salt of course (look out for contributors with an ulterior motive).
Stereophile "coverage"
Stereophile must enjoy all the negative reaction they get out of their choices of what to cover. Witness the latest cover story, the new Krell LAT-1 speaker. Here, from the biggest of the big advertisers, we get basically immediate cover-story coverage of their latest release, a $37,500 speaker. Stratospheric. The reviewer (who amazingly wasn't Jonathon Scull, with something of this price), is extremely positive while almost seeming to forget the price of this beast. It doesn't go much below 40Hz and it measures horribly. I guess you'll have to wait for their $75K model to get around those obstacles, though the option to pair the LAT-1's with some Krell Master subs is offered up to get down below 40Hz.
So, a super-expensive speaker coupled with other reviews of >$8K components ("you guys never review affordable stuff!"), immediate, feature coverage of a new Krell product ("You guys pander to your advertisers!"), and a very positive review of gear that nobody would argue measures respectably (at any price) ("You guys always give good reviews!"), on top of the usual reduced size of the magazine in the middle of the summer - the August issue should keep the negative feedback coming in full doses.