How to best connect My Polk speakers, and which receiver?

Hi Guys, I'm not very knowledgeable in this world and I have been reading through so much information trying to solve my problems but I think I have read myself into a state of mass confusion and made things worse. I will outline my different setups below to give more detail. My current issue is that My 2 year old Yamaha died, or rather is in the process of dying. I'm assuming at this point it has something to do with the HDMI inputs failing. It doesn't really matter, because even though my whole life I wanted a Yamaha, I have hated it since day one. I am now in the market for a new receiver, but I also need to know the proper way to connect and set up my speakers.

1st setup:
Receiver: JVC RX-D702B
Front L/R speakers: Polk Audio RT2000i (set up using option one in the manual, binding posts connected for high input)
Center speaker : Polk Audio CS400i
Rear L/R speakers: Cheap Sony surrounds from an old box set
Outside speakers: Cheap speakers

I absolutely loved this setup. It sounded wonderful and made me happy and smile to listen to music, and really made me smile to watch movies. it was full and wonderful and made me feel like I was at a high end movie theater. I can't say enough how much I loved this setup. It was only towards the end that I noticed that newer Bluerays sounded flat and boring and like they were missing a lot of effects. I looked into it and from what I could tell, it had to do with the receiver being too old to understand the new codecs (or something to that effect) That's when I decided to upgrade, which was the start of my nightmare

2nd setup:
Receiver: Yamaha RX-V773
Front L/R speakers: Polk Audio RT2000i (set up using option one in the manual, binding posts connected for high input)
Center speaker : Polk Audio CS400i
Rear L/R speakers: Cheap Sony surrounds from an old box set
Outside speakers: Cheap speakers

It sounded horrible. It was flat and boring with no bass and effects, I was sure I had done something wrong. I spent time using the YPAO microphone setup several times, and it was just bad, boring, no feeling. I began my manually changing of setups in the receiver menu. It always sounded awful. I called friends over who tried to help, and nothing. It was just bad. At this point I changed the way the RT2000is were wired thinking maybe the new technology didn't like this setup.

3rd setup:
Receiver: Yamaha RX-V773
Front L/R speakers: Polk Audio RT2000i (set up using option 2 in the manual, binding posts not connected for high input and using the sub woofer line level inputs direct from the receiver)
Center speaker : Polk Audio CS400i
Rear L/R speakers: Cheap Sony surrounds from an old box set
Outside speakers: Cheap speakers

I was able to get bass back in the sound, but I also have to turn the bass level 3/4 up on the turn knobs on the speakers. It still doesn't have the powerful bass you can feel like it used to. The sound it a little better, but still leaves me wanting. ok, maybe it's the wiring. I decided to rewire everything with good expensive wire. Nothing changed, ok maybe it's my rear speakers, time to upgrade again.

4th setup:
Receiver: Yamaha RX-V773
Front L/R speakers: Polk Audio RT2000i (set up using option 2 in the manual, binding posts not connected for high input and using the sub woofer line level inputs direct from the receiver)
Center speaker : Polk Audio CS400i
Rear L/R speakers: Polk Audio TL3 high performance satellite speakers
Outside speakers: Polk Audio Atrium 6 Speakers
Receiver set to Manual configuration Front 2 Large, Center Large, sub, Rear surround Small (not surround back, but I'm not sure if this is right, tried both ways and it didn't seem to make a difference)

I am still not happy with the sound at all. The bass is lacking, unlike before. The movie sound is lacking, unlike before. I will say I have noticed that if I put an older movie in, something early 2000s or older, it is much better, I can actually hear jets flying over head and cars wizzing by, but not on any newer movies at all.

I am thinking of Buying an Onkyo TX-NR838. I think this would be a good one, but I'm not sure. I know Onkyo has complaints about the HDMI ports going bad, but upon research, so do the Pioneer Elites, the Denons, and so do The Yamahas, and it is universal across the board, on the cheap lines all the way to the expensive ones, so I have decided whatever buy, I'll just buy the longest extended warranty I can find.

Do you think the Onkyo TX-NR838 will be good for my speaker set up, or should I get a different one? Is there a way these speakers should be set up or wired that would be best?

I was at a friends last night, he had a sound bar, 2 cheap book shelf speakers, and a sub, and his system sounded amazing, it's really frustrating to have this much money in my setup, and have someone that has a $600 set up sound that much better.