To lighten the mood a little, "
nobodyhere.com" might distract long enough for blood pressures to come down a little
As for the problems, real as they are, they are not common. I mean, MC is not universally broken. Aside from the focus problems that were present for a few builds, a few builds back, our remote has always 'just worked'. I appreciate that that's not exactly helpful if your remote is not working, but heyho, there it is.
If it helps, the HTPC, under "Options > Remote Control > Devices and options" shows the following:
Also, under "Options > Theater View > Behaviour" the disable windows media center option is checked.
The WMCE remote commands are installed with the program and if you have one those, it should just work out of the box. If you have anything else, you must go through the button learning procedure to teach MC what to do when the buttons are pressed.
-marko