It sounds like your needs are almost identical to mine. Unfortunately, I am about to return my Harmony.
Currently, customer support cannot get my (fairly simple) configuration to work. They seem to be caring people who are trying very hard, but are 0 for 2 with two or three other things still to tackle.
Obviously, there shouldn't be this number of problems in set up. I think that if I persevered I could probably solve most of the problems I am currently having - but at a high cost in time. Since you haven't got round to programming an even more expensive device, I suspect that you don't want to spend lots of time on Harmony either.
But the biggest reason I would suggest you think again is the usability for Tivo watching, even if all the basics work. If you are interested enough, you can search this forum and the one on Yahoo groups for various posts I have made in the last week and the responses I received. If you don't care that much, here is my conclusion.
For typical Tivo viewing:
1. Screen-based remotes are not good. Most people would rather use the Tivo remote without ever having to look at it.
2. Most hard button universals fairly well, but they have 50 or more buttons and that is too many.
3. Harmony has introduced several new concepts that look as if they could reduce the number of hard buttons and make a simpler universal remote.
4. Unfortunately, Harmony went too far in reducing the number of buttons to 15 (you could argue that there are only 9 useful buttons for a Tivo session). This requires the user to flip flop between two modes (play and navigate) so that the limited number of buttons can be remapped. This involves looking at the screen to ensure that the modes are correctly selected.
5. If Harmony had introduced their new concepts while keeping more hard buttons, they would have an excellent device for Tivo sessions. Once in Tivo mode you could watch all night without ever looking at the remote - just like you do with the Tivo remote. The extra buttons would give you the navigate pad and the play set of buttons just like on Tivo.
Of course, even if Harmony had done all of the design things right, the device would also have to actuall work with your configuration!
You will find one very savvy poster on the forums (Jason Wright) who has posted a design for a Harmony 2 that incorporates the hard buttons from the MX500 into a Harmony to give an ideal Tivo remote. However, after several months, even Jason has failed to make the current device do everything. He uses the Harmony as a "set up" device - to get everything switched on and connected properly. Then his wife picks up the Tivo remote and uses it for the rest of the night. Harmony is a rather expensive device (in time and money) to use once a night to turn things on and off. I have got further than that with a $40 universal from Radio Shack!
