MacMini as a Media Server

Ok, this'll be a long one, grab a coffee & start reading!
Around nine months ago I was impressed by how easily a collegue set up a home media network, streaming audio/video around his house.  This led me to buying my first Apple computer since my Apple-II EuroPlus many years ago...
I started out with a 2.5GHz mid-2011 MacMini, got annoyed  about not having a screen etc, went to a 21.5" iMac and just recently switched to a 27" iMac (I had screen envy...).
As I only use the iMac for iTunes, audio/video, AirPlay (yep, I also got an iPad, Apple TV and an iPhone!), I find I've got this huge 27" iMac sitting beside me on the coffee table and it's really out of place.
So.
Now that I've converted all my CDs & DVDs to an iTunes-friendly format I'm looking at going back to a MacMini, with my LaCie Little Big Disk holding my iTunes data, that way it can sit tucked away with the rest of my AV gear.
Two questions:
MacMini Specs - the 'guy in the Apple Store' reckons the basic 2.3GHz Mini will be enought to do the job quite happily, with no real need to spend the extra to get the dedicated graphics processor (I've got 8GB RAM I can put into the Mini already). 
I'm tending to think that an i7 quad-core will be a more capable beast, but is far, far more expensive, so if I don't need to go there I can save the $$$ - so any experienced Mini owners please let me know what you think (& why).
Secondly, I'm mainly going to be using the Mini to watch movies on the TV and play music on the HiFi; should I just use iTune as-is or should I use a Media Centre App?
I did look at XBMC but found it too difficult to implement - Plex just 'loads & goes'.  I've used Plex on my old gen 2 AppleTV and found it to be flaky (I've now got a gen 3 ATV) and found Plex on the iMac plain difficult to use without a remote, so I'm wondering if I should just use iTunes...
If anyone with expeirence on how to best use/configure the Mini as a dedicated Media Server (I now have a MacBook Air for the rest), please let me know!
Cheers!

If anyone would like to know how to fix this, I discovered the answer.
I have no idea what IPv6 is and I care not, but apparently now, all of a sudden, Apple makes iTunes talk to Airport Express units using IPv6. However, it didnt bother to make the Airport Express units expect this first, so iTunes can see the Airport Express, but it cant talk to it.
Anyway, I found that you have to manually go into your Mac settings (scary stuff if you are a non technical person like me) and turn off IPv6.
To do this, go to "Finder > Go > Utilities > Terminal"
type
networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi  (hit enter)
Then type
networksetup -setv6off Ethernet (hit enter)
and magically your iTunes will talk to your Airport Express units again.
I presume at some point we will have to undo this as technology moves on and everything uses IPv6, so when that happens go into Terminal again and type
networksetup -setv6automatic Wi-Fi  (hit enter)
Then type
networksetup -setv6automatic (hit enter)
Thanks Apple for that.

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