For me (I also have a Pronto, mind you, as you can see from my CGF in the site) the main attraction are the hard buttons. All my devices except the preamp have cursor and menu buttons. I find the hard buttons much easier to use, especially under viewing conditions.
With some creative thinking you can use these buttons for other things too, although you can get too creative and totally confusing :-). For instance, in the preamp device I use the menu controls for the DSP settings and the numeric keypad for center and surround volume levels.
But the smaller LCD screen is made up for also by the instantaneous switching and is much brighter. It will be very quick to use because you don't need to hunt around for switching the frame. The next and prev keys are always in the same position, and the switch is instant.
Also the macro capabilities like you were mentioning are more flexible. And the "magic" switching without discrete codes does exist, albeit you'll need to shell out around $600-700 extra over the IR-only T2, and do a little work. For many people it's not needed, but it's there if you do. And other things like RS-232 controls.
Finally the IR-only version is pretty much in the price range with the Pronto, $430 w/charger and 2 batteries.
Of course you can't really "guide" someone through with prompts and such, and logos and bitmaps are much more limited if you want to do fancy artwork. These are trade-offs. You decide :-).
