Does anyone have a good recommendation for the best quality home theater platform?

Your question is a bit vague...What’s the budget #1?  is this room already finished or are you starting from scratch?  How big is your room going to be?  What do you want it to do?  Want to watch multiple things at once i.e. sports on different channels? Do you want a projector with a drop down screen or one fixed to a wall ? Would you rather have a big flat panel TV or one behind the drop down screen or multiples behind it?  What do you watch or listen to?  Do you stream movies or do you have 500 Blu-Rays or both?  Do you stream music? Do you have a record player?  Is this going to be a combo type room where you want great stereo listening in here as well or do you want it dedicated to movie watching?  How about PS4 or XBOX? 
If it’s just movies and games and it can be done, I would put in a Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, IMAX type system consisting of 7.1.4 as a minimum and maybe wire for some future channels, but again, depends on size of the room.  Do you want all built in speakers or free standing out in the room?  Free standing will sound better than built-ins and running a pre/processor with separate amps will sound better than receivers and having dedicated 20amp circuits to plug it all in will be a huge help!
A lot more questions based on your answers...Hope this gives some direction and things to think about though...

Sooooo......Who knows whatever happened to the guy that posted this thread?  I replied back on 1/27 and now a couple of more comments, but the facilitator of this thread is nowhere to be found?

To @maxwave27 , Dave and Troy are correct!  What good is the sound from movies in a surround system if they're not intelligible?  It's way more than effects and I'm sorry that you feel, and sound, like you got taken.  However, mistakes made can be from a lot of different factors; was this all you (on your own) making these conclusions, or was it a poor dealer who lead you down the wrong path?  And I'm not saying that you doing it on your own was a bad thing, but, more just wondering how you came to such a negative opinion about Surround vs. Stereo?   Both have their place - pluses and minuses.

To Millercarbon272's comment:

A great surround system is no different than a great stereo: they will reveal the differences in recording quality between movies you watch - no budget is the same for any two films when they are mixed, mastered, EQ'd, engineered and produced like no budgets for music being recorded in the studio are the same. The better the system is, the more it reveals the differences in how they were recorded. Stereo in two channels, surround in more...Which version of The Last of the Mohicans did you hear?  Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS Master HD 5.1?  

I'm sorry that no one has ever been able to show you a truly great surround system, but it also sounds like you are completely locked into your opinion that stereo is the end all for movies.  I'm not knocking stereo, I'm a fan!!  But to say surround is a crock is like saying the corvette is the best car ever to drive.  It is, until you drive something better, however, once peoples minds are made up, doesn't matter at that point because you'll justify your opinion by any means necessary at which point, nothing else will matter.  I simply say, which I've told hundreds of people who've only heard mediocre or bad systems; you've just never heard a good one and I'm sorry that you haven't.