Bad design? Ive been waiting for Marantz to come out with a better design due to its *&(%-up with the 5200's Rf capabilities. The RF performance on the 5400 is nothing short of spectacular. What about the improved visibility by adding to the greyscale? Buttons have been given more depth adding to the 3-D look. I see you used to have a 5000. If you dont like the 5400, you would have hated the 5200. Marantz has improved a great deal from the 5200, including the overall look and the motion sensitive backlighting (I hear), havent messed with that yet. I applaud the USB support! Im sick of dealing with the USB to serial adpater that you have to use on new laptops that works 50% of the time . Even though its a little bit slower, I love it compared to the unreliability of using an adapter. I actually had gone back to an older laptop so that I could use straight serial instead of trying to use a sorry excuse for communicating to a remote.
RF: The 5200, you would literally have to place the RF base almost directly in front of the viewing position to get any sort of reliable performance. Macros, forget about them, Id rather go IR. Dont think about turning in the opposite direction.
The 5400: Exactly opposite, maybe the planets aligned correctly, the tide was out, but I know one thing, my socks were knocked off from the RF performance that the 5400 was spitting out. I was controlling the multi-room zones with macros (and didnt lose one step in the sequence) from other rooms and would have never been able to do that with the 5200. I have a first generation Pronto, I think I might upgrade finally.