Very interesting thread, and I'm making notes of some of these.

I bought my house with 8 zones already installed. It was all done very simply, and currently everything gets the Zone 2 output from my receiver. I only have the speaker wires running to the volume controls, and nothing else (but wouldn't have too hard of at time running cat6). All the wire centralizes already in my utility room where I have my server rack, and network run to. I've just finished my basement, adding 4 more zones but I did include the network cable to those runs for the future.

(Side thought, if you have wall plates and the amp/source each with 4 separate wires coming in (a pair for each channel) wouldn't it be possible to add a data layer on top... I'm no EE though, perhaps the noise is too great. Just part of my dream system.)

My dream would be independent control of each (of my 12) zone, including each being able to play different music from my server simultaneously (via the Plex library would be awesome for me). Being able to ask my Echo's to play something in the room, using the in ceiling speakers would be the icing on the cake.

While things are getting better, it still doesn't feel like there are products out there that are close to the capabilities that are possible today from other industries. Especially in the DIY arena.