All those ideas are great. However I live in a house where guests are constantly coming and going. A way to make it a bit more intuitive (and not have every single person who picks up your remote asks you how to do what... a question/answer format is probably the best bet.

There would be one activity button, let's say "WATCH A DVD". The user will press that button and a menu with a yes/no button asking if the DVD player is on or off. The person selects no, the lengthy process beings of warming up, starting up, etc. Yes would bring you right to the page. You could incorporate some simple question and answer buttons to get around the lack of tracking power.