Plus for Denon: The Denon has a much more advanced version of the Audyssey speaker calibration, which is a big plus. It really works very well to balance speaker response and to reduce differences between different speaker models running on the same system.
Plus for Onkyo: I have the Denon 988 with the same remote and can tell you that the remote is a disaster. It is simply the worst designed remote I have ever used for any product, ever. A number of important functions are relegated to the BACK of the remote, under a cover. So you are constantly flipping it over, opening the door, accidentally pressing buttons on the front, etc. Luckily the main functions work on my all-in-one Sony remote and I just use the front panel of the receiver for the other stuff. The Denon remote is banished from the room. I had an Onkyo 805 for a while and the remote was "busy," but otherwise very good.
Possible plus for Denon: Onkyo has really struggled with build quality on some models, with a much higher than average failure rate. Denons continue to be pretty solid for the most part.
Possible plus for Denon: I can't speak for these particular models, but my Onkyo 805 had significant audio lag (audio came later than video), and there was no way to fix it. My Denon has a tiny amount of audio lag, but it is acceptable and usually not noticeable unless I look for it.
Anyway, I'd probably lean towards the Denon because of its more advanced version of Audyssey, especially since you'll initially be using crummy speakers. But other people might have more specific info on those models. Check out avsforum.com and search for the model numbers. There should be threads on those models with info and experiences.
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