What is the best universal remote out there at a reasonable price?

There are many universal remotes out there, but outside of turning on,
switching channels, playing & recording, most don't seem to control all
functions so you still have to keep the original remote to set
schedules for the VCR or the contrast, brightness, etc for TV's and so
on. Even if some of these are controllable by the remote, good luck in
finding where they are or remembering what button to push. If all the
buttons were on the remote, it would be the size of the family car.
Using the original remote to program the codes in the univeral remote
would be long and tedious to get all the functions from the old remote.

My idea of a perfect remote would be one that would allow you to select
each device by a single button and have a touch screen that would be
setup to emulate all the device's functions. It would probably have to
be set up using a code like most do today, but I would think that
downloading the functions from the internet or an included CD would be
more practical since loading and maintaining all the functions you
would need would be very hard in the remote itself. I would think
doing the setup and generating the macros would best be done on a
computer also.

Is there any remote out there that does this that does not cost as much
as a TV itself?

I have seen products by a company called Universal Remote Control that
are interesting. The MX-350 Osiris has some nice features and can
control things by RF. The price at around $130 (street) and its
associated MRF-250 RF receiver (about $60 street) are reasonable. My
son just got this unit with his home theater. I am going to check it
out, but I thought I would see what you-all thought.