Well, I haven't owned that many remotes. After going through a couple cheap ones I purchased an MX-500. It was (and is) a great remote. It took some time to program though. When setting up a macro if one part of the macro was wrong I had to erase the entire macro and start over. A lot of trial and error was necessary to get the macro right.
I was a little leary about buying a PC programmable remote, but after doing lots of research I finally bought the MX-850. It was not only easier to program than I thought, it was easier than the MX-500 as well. Doing a macro was a snap. If one thing was wrong with the macro I did not have to start over. I just edited the macro in the software. Not sure how long it actually took me to program the 850. It was so much fun I lost track of time. And I never had a problem getting the software or live updates. You will be taken care of as long as you buy from an authorized distributor.

Another thing I did was download a few files from here:
[Link: tinyurl.com]
to see what other people did. It gave me lots of great ideas, some of which I incorporated in to my setup.

E-mail Damon or other AD's from here:
[Link: universalremote.com]
and ask for their best price. I paid about $20 more than the same remote sells for on Ebay. Buying from an AD gets you a warranty, support and software with live updates.
And the CI's on this forum are more than helpful if you get hung up on something.
The MRF-250 or 300 will take care of your cabinet problem. I have the 250 on one of my systems.