Good rant Matt, I liked it.
Just as a side commentary (arguably a rant 
): I spent a long time reading DAC reviews, looking for the "best" one in my budget. More time than I care to admit. But I noticed a consistent trend in reading various forums about DACs, and it goes something like this:
, so it's inevitable to find countless cases of "I upgraded from ABC to XYZ and noticed a huge improvement."
(etc, etc, go back to page 1 and read the whole thing)
Ok, I feel better now, rant over.
