That very much depends on where you live. Over here in Europe all you need is PlayTV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTV) to record live TV and do all the usual stuff you'd expect from a DVR. True, it doesn't let you run your own applications, but then again I'm struggling to come up with anything I'd want to run on a media centre other than - well - media players.

Why isn't anyone mentioning the consoles? Both the 360 and PS3 offer Netflix streaming... The PS3 is a rather capable media player overall... DVD/BluRay, MPEG via DLNA, Netflix, PSN video store, recognises external USB storage so you can play your movies off it etc.

I use one of these at home and while it's not the best pick for moving large amounts of data between machines, it's a good solution for sharing an internet connection without having to run wires all the way around the flat. I tried WiFi, but it's an old victorian house in central London and something seems to cause massive interference. Not persistently, but every odd minute I'd lose the connection to the router. The bottom line being: I don't think anyone is trying to argue that these things are going to replace wires or WiFi for the common case. There are situations - like mine - though where they're a very convenient solution.

Working 2 minutes from Apples Regent Street (London) store and having had a few problems with my MacBook I can say that Apple is no better than any of the other retailers if not worse.
You'll need to get yourself an appointment first. No problem if you paid the extra 200 pounds for pro care; you can book up to 14 days in advance. If you're sane however, you can only make bookings for the same day on their website. I stayed awake til midnight a couple of times before I got fed up and realized that there's absolutely no point in trying.
I thought the idea was at some point: Walk into the store, make an appointment, come back later; but that's definitely not the case.

I used to have a dreadful Dell notebook, and while the thing itself was rubbish, the service was a lot better than what I experienced with Apple.