nicest interface

Which interface would you prefer in combination of aesthetics and usefulness?

Old AppleTV with plastic, aluminium or tv remote, or iPhone/iPod Touch Remote.app

New AppleTV with AirPlay and movies needed to be stored on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, which means you'll also here use these devices like a remote

New Mac mini with Front row, Plex or Cover flow in iTunes/Finder, with Griffin Powermate or Magic Trackpad to control if possible, or alu remote?

Is Remote.app the same as Remote learning with iPhone/iPod Touch in the ATV menu, if not how does the latter work (since it has no buttons)?

Oh I see. So Remote.app gives you get a list of the content, but no pictures or fancy graphics? Can you see any change on the TV screen when doing anything on the Remote.app, like selecting a movie, but not play it? Does the Remote learning turn the iPhone to a virtual d-pad?

Oh, in that case I might buy one to try, thought it displayed just text.

Does anyone have Magic Trackpad and know if it's programmable? I tried it in iTunes, but since it's like a mouse you must hold one finger down on coverflow's bar before you can swipe. I would rather prefer doing it without finger pressed, in full screen mode that would be like a gigantic iPod Touch. Unless there's some mouse gesture setting in iTunes that would probably require programming it to simulate left/right keys instead of the mouse.

With my Powermate I can rotate the knob to select movie in Cover flow, which is quite nice, except that cover flow doesn't display meta data for movies like Frontrow do. For Frontrow I can't get it to work at all.