I have just a smidge of inside information on this, from a conversation from earlier this week.

A person I know is closely involved with the hardware end of the cable box biz. Since we're located in Barrington, IL and one of the major players is located in Schaumburg, you might infer that it is that hardware mfr. You can infer what you care to, right or wrong. I'm sure, should this info be correct, that it is equally true for all the players.

I'm told that the hardware side is perfectly capable of providing any level of control, discrete codes, multiple code sets, etc. These are offered to the various cable companies, and each company decides what they want and what they pay for. There's a post above that mentions a cable company (Cox?) has features on their Motorola box that are not common to other cable company's Motorola boxes.

So, if what I'm told is true, it goes back to convincing the cable companies to specify these features on the boxes, an all-but-impossible task, in my view.