personally, i'm not very pleased with alpines new stuff. we haven't gotten all their new decks in yet, but they are all very much defeatureized. only have 2v preouts now, bassengine pro is gone (along with all the EQ stuff, time alignment, and crossovers) and personally, the bassengine pro is the only reason i got the 9855. without the stuff included in that, you're left with a mediochre deck. it will do everything the average person wants to do, but if you're looking for more tuneability and don't plan on investing in some external processing, i would look more. however, if you plan on integrating with an ipod, i'd say they are at the top of the game currently.
if it were me, i would look into the new clarion pro-audio line. looks very nice, great features, and they (finally) got rid of the silver faces!