Not trying to be negative here, but if your only/main concern is parting from different colors identifying which buttons belong to a particular device, try designing a panel with 4 different colors and putting the required buttons in each designated (coloured) area of the panel. I know this results in "quadrupling (?)" buttons and provides for only a few buttons per device. But the 1/4 view did the same and unless you expanded 1 of the 4 you didn't have that many more buttons at you disposal anyways. If you did expand (and subsequently switched back to the 1/4 view just to expand another device, why not design a home-panel that lets you switch easily between devices. My take on this is that I only used the 1/4 view for "ease of use" when switching between devices which I now do using buttons on my homepage that jump to another device designed with the same basic layout but different buttons/functions as required.
In short, no I don't miss the 1/4 view and prefer the stability and speed. Think of it as windows; some use the taskbar, others the quick launch bar, again others the desktop and even some use the start button. It all depends on what you prefer. For me personally, guests don't need to learn to work my remote as long as my wife does know how to.....
I did upgrade and find the system to be more stable and, more important, much faster.