The position of the TV manufacturers reminds me a bit of the ISPs. The ISPs don't want to be just a dumb-pipe so they add on "features" that few want. And the T

The position of the TV manufacturers reminds me a bit of the ISPs. The ISPs don't want to be just a dumb-pipe so they add on "features" that few want. And the TV manufacturers are the same way. They no longer want to be just a dumb monitor, so they're embedding these features that would be better implemented in an external box that's replaceable. As far as user-friendly, my experience is that the interfaces look flashy on the surface, but once you dig deeper, you'll find poor integration, bugs and rarely a new release. All the better reason to rely on an upgradeable, external box for these types of features.