I gave the board to our electronics assembly lab. They have all the gear including hot air station. They did say it was difficult to get off and they destroyed the old component. They also said the quality of the circuit board was poor. They are used to Mil Std parts though. The Epad was soldered from back side of board, there are 5 very small through holes. This is done blind of course and a fair amount of heat would be required as it is probably connected to ground plane. They did say that if it did not work I could try to reheat that part. I would imagine that even if this was poorly connected it would still successfully pass a self test at low power. All of the other soldered joints look perfect.
When I do the loop back tests HDMI 3 and 4 fail which also supports IC3 fault.
I might have a look at other components around IC3, particularly the transistors and diodes on input. Failing that try replacing IC71 then I am done.
Options I am looking at then are either Marantz NR1607 or YAMAHA RX-AS710. I gather you favour Yamaha over Marantz.
I definitely prefer Yamaha. There is a continuity of design and troubleshooting technique for more than the past twenty years. They were the first to be serious about built-in diagnostic software, and even though some of it is kinda over my head, it's still consistently useful. Doesn't replace old-school troubleshooting, but it's a big help.
Also, they try to provide repair parts longer than the others, and in the U.S. at least, take much better care or their customers when they do have a problem. As an authorized servicer, I virtually had the last word on what was necessary to take care of my client; the decisions weren't left totally up to some bean-counter. For the most part, they are still this way. I wish I were still part of the network.