On Remote Controls Usability

After reading this nice article about remote controls and the way they suck (too many, too different, too complicated) I thought that possibly, we should end up with a separate box at home which knows all of the devices (along with their remotes), has one touchscreen remote (to use one remote for any number of any kind of equipment just by changing buttons on the touchscreen) which can control all of the user devices as well as provide some additional features like possibly:

– reorder the buttons displayed on the remote
– display only specified buttons (or better have profiling system, which adds another plus like at home, different members of family can use different profiles according to their needs and habits).
– whatever else.

I believe that this is not a very complicated thing, but I also believe that it will make life much easier.