I must confess to being of a similar mind in regard to the tablet solution, but having inherited the Galaxy, and the app being not overly expensive, I thought I'd give it a go.

In regard to the expense of the T2i, it carries and MSRP of $499 (plus whatever taxes and programming costs). Over here, the only price I've found is circa £750 (approximately $1200 at the present exchange rate), but I don't know if that's inc. or ex. VAT (20%). And of course there's the programming cost to add, hence my opinion of its being silly money.

Finally, as far as I'm aware, the only user programmable hybrid remote currently available is the Harmony Ultimate One.