I bet apple would actually be a great case study here. They have a great 10 foot UI, the world's shittiest TV remote, and a very easy to use system where your phone can be the entire UI and the TV can just play video (AirPlay).

If people still use the 10 foot UI despite the bad remote, I think the 10 foot UI must be the right idea. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure apple will never share those usage stats with us.