[macspoofing]

>It's time for manufacturers to get their heads out of their asses, cede this space to those who are best at it, and make "dumb" devices like they did 5 years ago.

They aren't going to do that. And you can't rely on set-top boxes (which themselves are largely terrible), media centers and game consoles to pick up the slack, since, as the OP points out, you still have a pile of manure at startup, while changing inputs etc.

You really do need someone like Apple to create a hardware/software product that shows everyone how to do it properly.