My experience is similar to a few members above. I ditched surround sound about 15 years ago and I've never had the urge to go back. My TV setup has 2 modest tower speakers and a 10" subwoofer with no center channel. It's only my wife and I that watch TV on a love seat so imaging hasn't been a problem. I don't use a center channel because the dialogue is quite clear but I will admit that a couple years ago I began using subtitles for movies. My wife and I realized that we were missing a lot of dialogue - especially when the actors had foreign accents - and it was silly not to use the subtitle feature. I don't think a center channel would make any difference.
Once I went to 2.1 I realized that it actually improved the movie watching experience. For me, surround sound is mostly distracting. We don't watch many blockbusters with whooshy-bang-boom sound effects so surround is really not important to us. And it's so nice not to have to deal with all those damn wires and extra speakers.
In my main system upstairs I have a TV on the wall behind the speakers (the speakers are about 6' into the room). I use this for watching concert videos and for breaking news if I'm I'm paying bills or doing something up there. My system images very well so 2 channels provides an excellent "you are there" experience for watching a concert.