[selden]

To get back to the OPs question -- what is your price range?

For example, the Marantz AV8003 pre/pro has gotten excellent audio reviews and lists for $2600.

And I think you should be interested in HDMI V1.3, since that's what's needed for support of the DD and DTS lossless audio formats on BluRay discs. One can hope that a significant number of audiophile quality recordings will start being released in those formats, since they're a much larger potential market: "everybody" will have them and there won't be a need for specialty SACD/DVD-A players.

 

[selden]

I've heard that HDMI 1.1 supports LPCM for trueHD and DTS-HD. Is that not the case? Not sure it matters...

According to the Wikipedia article, the HD sudio formats were added in v1.3.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.3

Price range is <$2k, but I'm looking for best bang/$.

I've seen online pricing of the AV8003 for well under $2k, but I don't know if they're authorized resellers. Good pricing can usually be negotiated with local A/V stores that sell Marantz. The premium that they charge (compared to the lowest online pricing) can well worth it when there are problems.