i wish i could finish this thread....since i started it!
maybe i think my new harmony one is far better than my RTI t2-c is because mine was programmed poorly. and there was nothing i could do about it. if rti made a consumer programmable remote, i would have bought that probably.
once again the only conclusions i get from this thread are:
CI guys don't understand what it means to be locked-in. i mean they do understand it exactly from their own business vantage-point, but don't appreciate it from the customers point of view. in my case, the rti remote basically required me to be in much closer contact than i wanted. any tweak required a dealer visit. new equipment, or just re-configuration required a dealer re-programming.
now if the rti was $500 with 2 years of unlimited free and instant tweaking, then a value proposition could be made. but at 1 to 2 grand, plus open-ended service calls, it becomes not worth the money nor aggravation. what would the average CI feel if i said i needed him to come over immediately because i want my volume control to raise or lower volume 3 ticks for each click. also it annoys me than a new station i am liking in on page 3 of my favorites. you get the point. a CI cannot economically satisfy a diy'er....
i have spent $40 grand on my home theater electronics, but control it fine with a $200 universal remote. and if something doesn't work...hell, i can even get up and manually push a button.
i know too much about this business to "trust" CI's. The same guy who sells his client an elegant automation device also can be the same guy who buys his connectors from home depot and says there's no way to get rid of a ground loop.
and when i want to buy a sony vw60 projector available for under $3K street price, the same CI who would need to reprogram the RTI would do his best to talk me out it. why do i need that.
