MCE shares its victimhood at the hands of content companies with the other media center solutions, like MythTV, XBMC, etc. The lack of a simple way to get cable TV into the PC (coupled with lawsuits targeting automated commercial skipping, etc.) relegated HTPC use to the brave few who were willing to set up IR blasters on their cable boxes or just download content instead of recording it.
It is the geek's torment to remember always what could have been, and suffer under what really is, thanks to the mighty powers that be (in this context the content companies, patent holders, etc.).