Actually, the remote doesn't "do all the work" for the braindead exactly. A competent person has to do the initial setup (anyone with any technical skill - which is most people these days - can do this. To fine tune it is the fun part. And you do have to understand your system in order to set it up. And uh, letting the remote do all the work is kind of it's purpose :)

Your basic questions have been answered but with regards to the out of sync problems - if its set up properly it shouldn't ever happen unless someone manually turns something on/off or someone blocks the signal while it is being sent. Even if it does, the remote has a "help" button which will ask a few basic questions (ie is the TV on?) and correct the problem.

I agree that to use the remote the way you want to isn't the best option - you will end up with alot of screens to scroll through for most AVR's for example. You'd honestly be better off keeping the multiple remotes you have IMO. I think once you used the activities you would like it though - I look at it as a great convenience and time saver/annoyance saver. Of course I know how to do it all manually, but what's the point. It would be like buying an automatic car then complaining that it isn't standard ;)

Also, if you are concerned with doing out of the ordinary things like listening to the radio don't worry about it. You can either set up an activity for this (kind of silly IMO), or what I do is enter an activity such as Watch TV, then just go to device mode and manually turn on the radio. I'm not sure what else you might be concerned about with the remote "doing all the work".