Trip, you clearly don't know much about WiFi, about throughspeeds, about "bottlenecks", about stability issues, or about how to configure the setup properly.
So how can you use your own experiences to denigrate the potential. Lots of users on this forum have WiFi networks that work excellently.
Just to comment on one of several items in your post:
"Add to that the reduced speed of the network while the music is streaming." Funny.
My quite inexpensive WiFi, which operates in an apartment where I can "see" another ten networks, is capable of:
Having two computers surfing the net without any reduction of network speed - while Music is streamed to one MacMini, two Airport Express Units, one iMac -- at the same time.
For fun, I once sent one film to the BV8 in my home office; another film to the MacMini in the home theatre; a third film to my daughter's iMac; music to the Airport Express units -- with four different computers demanding data from the ReadyNAS Server, on the WiFi network. It worked.
They were different films, mind you, in DVD-resolution (not divx'ed). When I tried to add a fourth film to the batch (to a MacBook Pro), I got the first sign that the network was starting to feel the load.
I did read the instructions on how to set up a network, that helped.
That said, wiring for Ethernet is a perfectly good option.
Your constant slagging of Apple products, with claims that they underperform, deliver bad sound, etc., is just not helping your cause, I think. Those who know a little bit about sound management in OSX will know you're completely wrong - but then we're also likely to have read the instructions as to how to set up for best possible sound porting.
BTW - in another thread you wrote the following, which made you seem ridiculously bent out of shape by Apple products:
TripEnglish:
I'd say that watching grass grow is better than AppleTV!
Since an ATV is delivering tv-series and movies in HD sound and vision to my home, as well as allowing the display of our family photographs in HD, as well as permitting us to enjoy numerous podcasts, internet radio, YouTube - and allows us to not only play the music we have on servers and Mac's throughout the house, we can also purchase music (and film and television series), with a little ATV that hasn't failed or hickup'd once since it was bought more than two years ago, and which keeps updating itself to make certain it doesn't ...
This from a unit which ports content through HDMI, mind you, in CD-resolution sound (or 48kHz when sending multichannel movies/tv-series) and with a 1080i image. And you really should try the hand gestures control of movie and tv-series playback on the iPod Touch or iPhone - magic. Below you'll see a little selection of the films available on my harddisk, which will play instantly should I press one - and where ff, rewind, pause, chapter selection, etc., is easily available on my iPhone or iPod touch - with the content being constantly displayed and updated.
How is all of this worse than watching grass grow?