I recommend the MX 500 by home theater master for all but the last (and last year....you could have gotten the irclone to program with your PC, but they discontinued making the ir clone recently....it was made by an enduser who stopped offering it). The more expensive models lose the skip buttons but gain others, and if you want, you can program the LCD buttons to do that function.
You can get an MX 500 for under $90, and it can operate 10 devices with 2 pages of 10 LCD buttons per device. Programming is not too difficult, but I agree the PC and IR clone made it easier (I have 2 and did one each way). (Also the computer makes it easier to do some fine tuning once you are done, as well as a backup if you ever need it). The only thing, is I am not sure the computer part is worth spending the extra couple of hundred dollars for their better models (and you lose the dedicated skip buttons for dvd).
Great remotes though....all of them from:
http://universalremote.com/Look under home theater master for the Mx500 and under complete control productd for the higher end models.
and perhaps you could get an irclone second hand from someone who is upgrading to an mx 650 or 850...........