What I see through this post is compromise. The Danish remote compromises usability for aesthetics. The peanut remotes compromise aesthetics for usability. The other remotes compromise everything for a reduction in development cost.
The Apple remote looks nice, but the usability question is shifted to the Apple TV. I haven’t used one, so I can’t speak for its success. I do have an LG smart TV and am shocked at how difficult navigation is. They tried hard to simplify it, but there are even more options now: cable, Netflix app, Youtube app, web browser, 6 different inputs, etc.
Hotels: The thing that always bothers me is that they have a nice 1080p HD TV in the hotel room, but they only have 480 cable and the TVs are always set up in the wrong perspective so that everything is distorted. Don’t these hotels have user experience people that check that their hotels have their TVs set up properly? It’s a crime!!!