When designing a system, it is worthwhile to consider different circuit designs and the merits of each respective circuit design prior to selecting one circuit design as the foundation of the system. Often, each circuit design represents a particular or unique circuit architecture. As an example, consider the case of a multi-rate, multi-stage filter. Such filters are commonly used within wire-line and wireless communications, audio, and other applications. When designing a multi-rate, multi-stage filter for a selected application, a variety of different circuit architectures are likely available. Each circuit architecture can have, for example, a different number of stages. Each stage can apply a different amount of sampling rate reduction. It is often difficult to accurately recognize each circuit architecture that can be used for a given application. It can be even more difficult to adequately assess the merits of each circuit architecture that is available.