Rich,
As to the same brand matching components... Using the same brand name usually means nothing other than how it's going to look in your rack... However, in some cases it can mean they are similarly voiced components... but that has it's pros and cons also. This is where finding a synergistic match becomes really flaky, trial-and-error business.
Some companies make great amps and horrible preamps. In my opinion, older B&K amps are fantasticly musical but their preamp counterparts were dead boring and very veiled.
In your particular case, I don't know. Manley is a company I've often heard about but rarely experienced. Unfortunately, I think it will be near impossible to make any conclusions until your speakers are back together... The ones you have now aren't yours so it's not the same.
I ended up with the Mac preamp because I heard something similar at a friend's house. Plus it had the bonus feature of a tubed phonostage. If he'd had an ARC or a Minimax combined with his system, I would've tried that instead. However, I liked a particular sound and knew I could get my money back out of the deal with Mac gear if I didn't like it. At first I wasn't in love... but after some tweaking, I am.
I've never heard a passive that I liked, even using a fancy pot with 1 source and a super-nice implementation. Remind me about it and I'll give you someone to contact about trying one.
They always sound 'dark' to me, which is the opposite of what I think you like. This is certainly not always the case, just my experience. On a previous forum folks would tell me I don't know what I'm talking about... but I know what I've heard... about 3 or 4 different passives that all sucked.
However, I've never heard a Bent, which looked to be the most promising of all.
Preamps are a good control center. Finding a really good one (transparent, detailed, musical) under 2,k with a remote is going to be tough.... (not that you said 2,k was your ceiling... just saying that's about the normal threshold I've found for everything you want)
-C