What is the warmest receiver...

Tony buddy, it's not (just) about the quality of the sound, rather the drivel that is produced nowadays (American Idol? Hah!!!).

I have recently auditioned all on your list plus the NAD742. They were all runners up to the Rotel and NAD with the NAD being the warmest. HK came in third with the other Japanese makers sounding very bright. If you are looking for warmth for under B&K prices, I would say the NAD. I ended up with a HK AVR330 just because it was a deal I couldn’t refuse. I heard the Arcam AVR200 has a similar sound as the NAD.

The pants, the cream, oh well, it has little to do with radio. Certainly during live music broadcasts. And as someone mentioned above, it is the discovery of new artists, new CDs, a huge library of sound that none of us will ever have on our shelves. For the pants I would probably recommend a receiver which in its philosophy resembles more a common SUV with a generous amount of chrome. MD-208 is a DB9.

I had an old NAD T-770. It didn't have a bunch of whistles and bells but it had an extremely nice sound. A bit of a funky interface though. Much warmer sound than the Lexicon/Chiro system that I replaced it with.

Listen up! The only one on your list worthy of powering the Leisure 2's is ROTEL. I'm using the 1080 amp (200 watts) with the 1090 preamp and it's very clean. Give it a try and don't waste your $$$ on the others.
Robert