Anthony: thanks for that. Mind sending me your e-mail address?
Eric: Anthony is right: their was a lot of excitement about the Harmony and Easy Zapper employed a fascinating Beta program to ensure that the remote would be full of what customers really want. This unfortunately had a few negative repercussions: One, people pooh-poohed them for charging 1/2 price for a Beta product. Well, the truth is that the hardware works just dandy; always has... it is really the soft and firmware that they wanted to continue engineering. So what we all got for 1/2 price is a fully working, solid remote control... that continues to get upgraded for free.
Two, because they were already in production (her comes the answer to your question of "how can you accidentally release a product"), a major retailer managed to mistakenly get a pile of them through distribution channels, and started selling them. So, through an accident, EasyZapper found they were already required to support a product that they weren't quite ready to dish out.
Three, because the Beta remotes were in the hands of a good number of people, and because the EasyZapper support and development teams are really gung-ho and anxious to make this Device a truly satisfying experience, they spent a lot of time answering customer calls and e-mails, and making "on-the-fly" changes... when they really were supposed to be working on other priorities.... like some paper documentation. So then people started pooh-poohing them for putting out bad product.
They can't win, can they?
Finally, as Anthony points out, a search will indeed present you with numerous discussions and requests for getting into the XML by users... which ultimately led to people like you being "pissed off", if only because they hadn't had time to fully come to terms with all the varying requirements of an XML customer experience.
Now I have to say, having spent a good deal of time going through the Wizards and the information at the EasyZapper website, that frankly I can't see where anyone would want to complain. There is tons of excellent information on that site, dealing with all the areas you talk about. There are notes that are in direct response to requests.... and there are paragraphs and pages of good, solid support information provided to help people through the "Advanced" processes.... information that EasyZapper prepared themselves to help fill the gaps while they continue to advance through this very large project of theirs. I really don't see a whole lot missing.
I'd also like to point out that the price we are paying, the cash price, for the Harmony, is not exactly supporting their research. EasyZapper, like many other startups, relies on private funding to get going, and the "in-the-red" period for startups lasts anywhere from 2 to 5 years on average. So the cash coming in from sales of remotes at this point could hardly be classed as "financing".
Since you say that you are 98% of the way there. I can tell you for an absolute fact that the lads at EasyZapper are very happy because by struggling through some of these issues yourself, you and others like you have been very helpful to them, allowing them to plan for the future content of the Harmony, and possibly other remotes they might come up with down the road.
