I have owned both, programmed both, and used both. Believe it or not, they are both great remotes. However, they are designed for entirely different audiences.
1.) If you want something that works out of the box and can be tweaked to perfection (as much as is attainable within the remote's design specs) then get the Take Control [more reliable cousin of the IRQ]. It can be fully programmed in under an hour an comes with a database of thousands of rremote codes. It is a little slow and the IR range is less than the Pronto.
2.) If you want something that has almost infinite customization possibilities then get the Pronto. It comes out of the box with almost no useful codes (unless you have Phillips or Meridian components), so it will take quite a while to get up and running. However, the remote can be programmed to do almost anything. It doesn't really have a programming language (hopefully it will in a future release) but it is VERY flexible. You can control heating, lights, audio, probably anything with an ir remote.
It comes down to which you want setup and forget or program, tweak, rearrange, tweak, program, extend, modify.......
Setup and forget = Take Control/Madrigal
Program......=Pronto
If you have the time and inclination, Pronto is the way to go. While reading this forum is free, the enjoyment that I have gotten out of reading here and being able to understand and put those ideas to use, has been worth the price I paid for my Pronto, even if it didn't work as a remote. Daniel has done a terrific job with this site and the Pronto users here are like a friendly neighborhood. Its great fun to come to the block parties.
But Pronto is a great remote as well. Range is phenominal, devices unlimited, macros unlimited, flexibility incredible. It is not perfect though. You can read more about the known problems at
www.prontoedit.com
