You deserve to be smacked. Really.
Even high end receivers have limits in their number of inputs.
On top of that, outside of a very few niche receivers, you have to pay a fair amount of money to get one that even accept HDMI for audio. MOST of the reasonable consumer priced models do not, and seeing as apple TV is a whopping 99 dollars, they aren't targeting Richie Rich with his $5000 Denon amp.
And for everyone going on about 720p vs 1080p - this has been discussed ad nauseum.
It is NEVER impossible to tell the difference, but it has been made clear that it is very difficult to see a difference between 720 and 1080p unless you are running over a 50" tv.
As well, the bandwidth increases by going up to 1080p are huge, HUGE. Wireless B networks can't handle 720p, lower end N networks can stream 720p okay, but have MAJOR problems streaming 1080p.
It will be quite some years before we see 1080p being a standard and for them to phase out 720.
AND on another note, people need to stop assuming that just because non physical media is becoming more common, it is going to be a very long time before it completely replaces physical media of things that have a higher value like Movies and Video Games.
Apple is hitting every target on the mark. They know their audience and are tailoring their products to suit the majority of them. Kudos to them.
And just to note - I was an Apple hater before the iPad. Since then, the kool-aid is tasty!
TV is fail-sauce.