CharlieD
Chef Extraordinaire
The Wikipedia article: Beef Stroganoff makes interesting reading.
No tomato sauce for, absolutely not, I can see adding a spoon of Hot Russian mustard. As far as onion or shalots, it's all the same to me, I hate both, so I like to cut it as small as possible and cook it long so by the time I'm done I couldn't see thhem in my plate.
If you can get the best cut of meat at the resonable price that is the way to go, but for my family (7) plus price of kosher meat it is never reasonable, so I usualy end up with some cheap cut.