As far as expensive stuff like the Anthems - I'm skeptical, to be honest. When I think of "built like a tank" I think of my old 45 pound Sony. But I guess the days of 40+ pound receivers are gone.
My Anthem pre/pro weighs just short of 30lbs. The insides are clean and neatly laid out. Five power supplies and all that stuff. It is a very nice sounding bit of kit.
Far as I know, they are the only company that promoted hardware upgrade-ability and actually delivered. They made a upgrade kit to add HDMI input and outputs with video scaling and all that. Problem is it was expensive and I think not many people took them up on it as HDMI was starting to become standard equipment at that point. If you simply wanted to upgrade to HDMI you could do it for less with some other brand receiver than the cost of the Anthem upgrade.
My "small system" Yamaha RX-V1700 receiver weighs about 40lbs.
My "big system" is Marantz AV7005 pre/pro. Dated by current standards as it doesn't have ATMOS, HDMI 2.0 w/HDCP 2.2, but it is HDMI, room correction, etc. etc. Presently the HDMI version isn't a problem for me because I'm not doing 4k.
As far as lossless codes, I select them whenever possible because I have the capability. But, if someone asks me or the discussion is opinion about it, my opinion is not worth upgrading just for that. However, today, it's largely unavoidable. You get the capability with pretty much every processor/receiver that's been built for some years now, regardless of price, AFAIK.
My change from the Anthem to the Marantz was primarily of convenience for HDMI as I was tired of the multiple switch kludge of some stuff connected to the TV and some connected to the pre/pro.