SKY+ software still bad after years...

One of the things I've always found amazing, is how people will put up with mediocrity or just plain terrible experiences when they're not aware of anything better.  SKY+ is one of these. 

Sure, it's a hard disk recorder, allows recording more than one program at a time, has on-screen program listing, improves on the old VCR experience by so much it's very hard not to love it once you've tried it, but.........

I used to live in the 'states, and had a Tivo.  This was 5 years ago, and even then, the software on that Tivo v1 box was SOOOOOO much better than the stuff on the SKY+ box today.  What's even worse, is that there's no indication that SKY is taking any steps to improve this situation.  The new HD box is no better, as it has essentially the same UI.  Geez, maybe we should ask Steve & Co to design us a proper set top box...

A few examples:

• This thing is a computer right?  Runs some version of Java presumably. So how come it get's 'confused' at times?  Quite often, looking at the info for a recorded program, I get a description for something entirely different.  Like getting a description of a recent CSI episode when you click info for Desperate housewives
• Once again, as a computer (and hopefully someone is thinking about the code behind this), how can programs EVER clash?  Sometimes when I try to record 3 programs at the same time, I get a warning.  Other times, it seems to decide I don't need the warning, and it will decide to stop recording a random program and later give me the helpful message 'recording clashed'.
• If you see an ad for a program that will air later in the week (but you can't remember which day), and you want to search by name, you're out of luck, as the stupid software will not search alphabetically more than 2 days in advance!
• On top of that, the alphabetic search screens shows EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of every program. so you'll see an entire page of star trek, or something equally dumb, because the designers haven't figured out how a treeview control works. 
• And of course, you cannot type more than the first letter for a program, so you have to page through all these listings to find (or not, if it's more than 2 days off) what you're looking for.
• And then - series link breaks when there's a break in the series.  When the American shows stop for election week or sweeps week or Thanksgiving or any of the other reasons they may skip an episode, you have to trust that you will remember to reset the link yourself!

Funny thing, my Tivo box solved all these problems beautifully, and as I said, that was 5 years ago.  Surely, someone should be able to improve on the code in the SKY box.

Sadly, I don't think anyone cares, as SKY doesn't have any competition out here - so why should they pay engineers to fix the lousy user experience?