Aloha!
To each their own. I'd be happy with any one of those brands you posted, OP.
My undergraduate school in the late 70's to early 80's was a business AND technical college. Most of my dorm mates were Studying Electrical Engineering. Stereophonic Gear was all we talked about, besides girls. Every single one of the EE Students I knew all had Yamaha. They studied schematics, and stated that dollar for dollar, you could not beat the brand for quality, endurance, and build elegance.
Based on their recommendation and what they bought themselves, I purchased a Yamaha CA-810 system that was popular because it had decent power at 65 WPC, but was not priced so stratospherically high that you could not begin to afford it. I still have it. It's still my favorite Rig aside from my McIntosh gear.
I had a few Military friends that indeed brought back equipment with them, and most of it was Sansui. Nothing wrong with that brand, that's for sure.
My Room mate (also a business student - not an EE student) had a 40 WPC Kenwood Integrated amp he brought to school with him. He was always screaming that his rig was the best. There were a few Pioneer rigs, and a few Technics. I don't recall seeing any Sony nor JVC.
A few times we had "Sound-Off" competitions where we took all of our Rigs to the Quad (common area) and played the same album with the same speakers but different amps. The EE guys would critical listen and extol the virtues of slue rate, dynamic headroom and plethora of other specs as they compared notes while listening. We'd hold Quad parties and take turns using our rig to drive the largest set of speakers we could find. My room mate had Altec VOTT's (damn things took up most of the free space in our dorm room) and we usually used those for the "Sound Off" competitions.
Those were the days.