Craig, no offense, but if your theory is right then that the people at HTM must be real dumb. They don't loose anything with the clone sw/hw, you still need to buy one of their remotes. And if they did that because they would rather you buy a 700 over a 500, then why not just allow the 700 at 250 and they forced the rest of the vendors to go back at 500.

If anything the loop hole is there to make the 700 more competitive with other remotes like the Pronto. This way anyone that does not do their homework pays 500 for it and anyone that does has a price that matches the Pronto so it comes down to do you prefer buttons over touch screens