I know I've seen this question on here before, but cant seem to recall the answer. How important is it that the surrounds match the front speakers? Thanks for the help.
IMO: not at all important, unless you listen to a lot of multi-channel SACD/DVD-A music or Dolby concert DVDs, or watch a lot of those 5% of movies that have more than 10% of audio content going to the surround channels. If those usage patterns do not apply to you, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the choice of surrounds.
There is some debate as to whether the TYPE of speakers should match, for example if using "bright" surrounds with "neutral" or "warm" front speakers would create an unmitigated disaster, a minor annoyance, or be completely irrelevant. Since I've never tried truly BRIGHT surrounds with my (neutral) Ascend front speakers I can't really say but I would lean towards the 2nd or 3rd scenario in light of the fact that most surround receivers will allow you to adjust the level of your surrounds to your other speakers, and some will even let you EQ each speaker individually.
Ed's seperate channel eq is a good point, if you are so equipped. If not the whole matter may come down to asthetics. Do they look like a match, or do you care?