My introduction to Rotel was a 25W/channel Integrated amp - my first ever "new" component (oops sorry, no I bought a silver cassette deck before that!) in my teens.Funny, I've always considered Rotel to be a higher end brand than Denon/Marantz.. Rotel was founded as a family business and as far as I know, is still run by the same family. Their distribution network was facilitated by B&W in the 1980's prior to Sound United and the massive consolidation that took place thereafter. Yamaha, like Sony, has the ability to produce state of the art equipment basically whenever they feel like it, just depends on their goals for the product segment in any given year.
I consider Rotel to be the third leg of the Japanese holy trinity of hi-fi, with Luxman and Accuphase completing the triangle.
It was one of the value choices for good performance at rock bottom pricing in the late 70's and early 80's - it competed with the classic NAD 3020....
When I upgraded to Revox and Quad gear... it got purchased by a friend ....
Hence my budget to mid-market perspective on Rotel!