Interesting thread - a lot said that I've been stewing over for a year or so. I've been a HB user since the early (i.e. Good old) days. And I got spoiled with Scott's (and others) EXCELLENT support. When Scott sold (out) I said at the time in the HB forum "nothing good would come from it". So far it seems I'm right. I've got a working HB platform now, doing lighting and A/V control with several HB remotes. We were led to believe that HB would be gracefully integrated into Meedio Essentials and essentially (sorry for the pun) encouraged to buy Essentials if we wanted them to 'talk', for example music library selection and control. Well I bought Essentials and almost a year later we got a one-way not-ready-for prime-time pre-beta connector.
Well, I'll wait some more - I have too much time invested in what I have up and running now. But would I recommend HB and Essentials, or MEEDIO in general? Only with caveats: Don't expect much if any new HB development (although support of the EXISTING product is fairly good), and don't expect full HB/Essentials integration any time soon.