Alan, i'm going to disagree with you.
7.1 comes in several flavors; a shallow, wide room is not conducive to the first option, but the second works very well.
- surrounds + rear
- surrounds + front wide
- surrounds + front height
And 7.2 implies 2 channels of subwoofer output, with no implications for the number of subwoofers used (although less than 2 would miss the point). What is implied, whatever room correction system is used, that it can correct two channels of LFE. This is not always the case when dual subwoofer/LFE outputs are provided. Appearances not withstanding, my AVR is not 7.2, it just has a built in splitter.
[/DISAGREEMENT]
At the same time, 32'x 12' is a very wide room, where space might be better utilized aiming the screen at the short wall, as your wife likely discovered. You can then think of it as a small theater with a large lobby in the back. Layout your speakers as if it were only 15-20' deep, but use the added space so no one sits near a speaker, even the surrounds. The final act would be to put a porous divider about 8' from the rear wall, as a room-size bass trap (don't laugh, it's been done).
I'm also curious about the 8'x24' area to the left, and the odd rectangle where the two spaces meet. Are these separate rooms?
Finally, this is a basement. You should expect bass mode issues. I wasn't kidding about that divider. My best suggestion is to get an inexpensive measurement rig and start playing with subwoofer placement, so you can get some data on what could be a real issue - bass frequency decay rates. Make that room decay in general, if this is an empty basement. Everything you add has acoustic effect, with the great saving grace the fact that we humans all like rooms with about the same decay rates. You'll natrually furnish your house to the right decay rate range at higher frequencies, but may want to tweak a theater, and will have to address bass modes.
Have fun,
Frank