I almost forgot about this one.
CigarSmokedByClinton Pretty funny. I went from a CL decoder card to my Apex. Mainly cause I wanted a remote, and a little easier use. Anyway. The Apex is still better IMO, but I think you did get a couple of bad units.
I checked my local CC, before I bought mine to make sure they had quite a few just incase this happened to me. I had read that you either get a good, or bad one, and that there was a lot of already opened boxes, but this was over a year ago. They've changed since then, and have gotten better. I actually got a remote that's gouged on the bottom, but kept it, cause I didn't want to risk getting a bad one. Those days are over though. They've upped their quality from what I've seen/read.
Hey it's dirt cheap, and does what you want. Get the Apex.