What's the graphics performance like on that system? I've not seen or heard of XBMC running on any low-power system with acceptable performance. Decoding video is one thing, and as long as frames don't drop you're going to have a decent experience. But when the menu performance is slow, remote response disconnected, etc. it's going to make for a bad experience.

I hooked up Boxee last night and I have to say that this 1.0 release is, in terms of usability, an extremely early beta. Switching to a completely different UI right before shipping is far beyond a novice move and I have no idea how the money people let them do it. So much functionality has been removed from the previous betas and so many new bugs introduced (while old ones have not been addressed) that it's laughable - at least it would be if it didn't also make me want to cry.

Matt, I'm finding the easiest way to do anything is simply to go to the File option from the menu. You can also choose "files" from the Movies or "Shows" menu items, but that seems just redundant.

The "HOME" screen, is pretty useless as you've mentioned. And like in previous betas, it's not actually the top level menu. But it's even more painfully obvious because now the menu is actually a slide-down panel which is more like an options screen. Basically, the menu button on the remote takes you BACK in the UI, but only as far as media lists. Then you have to navigate the menu to go back any further. Poor implementation. Very easy to fix though.

I'm going to take back my second unit, but because I have a business case which requires access to this box, I'm going to hang on to the first unit and just keep my fingers crossed they see the light and add back all the functionality thet was lost - and more.

One of the things I mentioned about the last beta, the presence of actor's names in the movie descriptions, is also missing from 1.0. Actors are generally much more important to the synopsis than the director. I'm not even sure why they show director because you can't do anything with that information, like search for it or sort by it - same goes for year (we need to be able to sort by this). It's mainly just a point of trivia. You also can no longer scroll long movie descriptions.

The praise I can give is that FFWD/REW works a bit better. Still pretty bad, but a bit better.