I am a fan of Onkyo, Denon, Marantz (Panasonic high end). Yamaha and Pioneer (Particularly Elite) have some good stuff also. Athena speakers, I've been told, are pretty good value for the money. I would stay you're pretty safe staying with those brands.
For the receiver, mainly make sure it has the inputs and outputs you need, namely HDMI switching, full 1080p support (be futureproof), enough of them for all your devices. Since we're sticking with name brand stuff that can be bought at brick-n-mortar stores, I'd recommend Denon first, Onkyo 2nd, Marantz 3rd on the price-range of 300-600 for something that'll blow that Sony Dream System away.
I heard aperion audio is pretty good, though they only sell online (and the speakers look pretty good to boot). Another online exclusive that I hear good things about is
www.axiomaudio.com .
I did do quite a bit of research a little while back (just cause I had the time and was bored) and those were the brands I would most likely go with if I were to upgrade my system (right now a pretty basic Onkyo 6.1 System with separate DVD/Receive and a pretty powerful Infinity 500Watt sub). But it really is quite loud, the speakers are quite a bit bigger than other HTIB systems. It does VERY well with TV and DVD's, not so well with music, straight up.