jaatea,
You hit on a couple of the main items. While the 500 has Irclone available, (it must be purchased in addition to the 500), that software is not nearly as elegant as the MX-Editor for the 700. Frankly, that is one of the major enhancements over the 500. There are scads of of Pronto .ccf files available for the 700 and the drag & drop feature with those is wonderful.
The 700 has 2 pages of devices, giving you 20, or double the number of the 500. This flexibility let me set up my Denon 3803 as 2 different devices - one as a Tuner/radio and the other as a receiver for the HT.
I also set up additional devices as follws:
1) A POWER device. Here I have the discrete on and off commands for ecah of my components. Great for reliable macros.
2) A SWICH that lets you move from what you are watching/listening to what to want to watch/listen to via macros, all with a one button push.
3) A SPKRS device. I loaded all of the Denon speaker commands here for the 5 speakers and sub. Using the buttons, I can adjust the speakers + or - by .5 db . Wonderful for calibration.
The 500 did not provide enough devices to give me this kind of flexibility. While the 500 is a great remote (I had one), the 700 is more than worth the extra $50 you would spend. I would not even think about it twice.
