just a quick followup in case anybody was interested in this topic.
it looks like i'm going crestron. i spoke to a few panja dealers (they are hard to come by) and all but one of them are also crestron dealers and clearly prefer to install crestron. none of the panja folks i contacted actually did netlinx stuff - just the lower-end products. netlinx is too new and complicated (for now).
the panja corporate and regional people were helpful in hooking me up, but their products seem to have minimal penetration thus far. in addition, they have recently gone through some corporate turmoil (layoffs, product deletions, etc.). they seem like nice folks, but i couldn't get any real info on their products.
in comparison, crestron shipped me a couple dead trees upon request and if you throw a rock you'll likely hit a crestron dealer.
one man's experience and opinion, fwiw.
sab