Test gear for room nodes - parametric equalizers

I have recently taken a serious interest in understanding room acoustics and nodes. I have read some great, easily understandable material from www.harman.com, and some from frequent Audiogon poster Rives at rivesaudio.com. I have come to believe that my system has a great deal of untapped potential that may be masked by room nodes, and that use of bass traps, etc, are not answer. The skinny I am getting is that we could all benefit from high resolution room acoustic measurements and the judicious use of parametric eq's to cut the nodes down to size. FYI - my room is rectangular 17 feet by 19 feet, with 9 foot ceilings. Three questions:

1. Does anyone know of a reasonably priced, high resolution room measurement system? Rives Audio sells a system for $600.00, but is that the low end? Can you rent this stuff? After all, you probably only need it for a short while.

2. In a multi-channel system, how few channels of eq can you get away with to tame room modes? I would think perhaps three would work for stereo music(one for subwoofer and two for the main channels since they produce the most bass), or do you really need the center and surrounds eq'd?

3. What about reasonably priced eq's that won't defile a good system? Some high end parametrics run $4000-$5000.00. On the other hand, one well recognized pro-gear manufacturer, Ashly, makes some where you could get 3 channels for about $900.00. Would they be a mistake, introducing noise or something? Meyers Sound makes one for a bit more. Above that, it gets pretty crazy, at least for my budget.