(I don’t do PVR with my Mini, as I live in Canada, and we have on over the air HD, no Clear QAM, no cablecard, and the networks sometimes flip the “no copy” bit even on SD just to frak with media centers — benefits of monopolies without regulation!)

For the US masses, however, I think your points are valid.

What about games? Apple got all them new patents…?

There are three wish list features that I crave as well: 1) With the SDK around the corner, I’d like to be able use my iPhone or iPod touch as an Apple TV remote, including keyboard and touchpad interface. 2) In a dream world, the AppleTV begs to replace the DVD player as well. Even if it cost a little more and is little bigger, I’d like a blue-ray/DVD drive. External would be fine as well. 3) Media sharing on your home network would be huge. Now that the syncing thing is all but abandoned for Apple TV, I’d like to hook up a Drobo to my AppleTV and put all my audio/video files on it to share on the home network. It just needs an iTunes server application and use of the USB for external drive storage.

Sure, I could get most of these item with a Mac Mini, but I hear that device may disappear (which I think would be tragic). I think an intuitive AppleTV interface and my listed improvements would make Apple TV the DVR/Media device of choice for more people than currently use either. It’s like the iPod – sure there were other MP3 players, but it took apple to make the interface usable and quality sufficient. Then again with the iPhone – sure there are other smartphones, but none can touch the mobile web browsing and intuitive interface. Renting movies and picture/music streaming are just not enough when other devices many of us already have can do most of that (ex. Tivo).