My dad got a surround sound system a while ago. Anyways, when he set it up, he put the L and R speakers in the middle of the room and the SL and SR speakers in the back of the room. This hasn't really bothered me until I was playing Condemned for the Xbox 360, and it sounded like my footsteps were coming from behind me (so I thought there was an enemy behind me) Anyways, I told him, and instead of moving the speakers, he bought two new speakers to put in the front of the room, and he's going to split the SL and SR channels, so they come from both the middle and back speakers.
My question is, is this a good idea, or would it be better to just move the speakers into the right spots?
Placement is not your problem. Most likely it is the digital surround mode that you are choosing which makes decisions, sometimes indiscriminately, to push certain sounds to the back or side speakers where they don't belong. Play with the surround modes and see what works.