That would be nice...but would they actually do it? Has E* ever completely changed the interface of a receiver after its release?
Well, yes. I remember the old 4700, for one, had Dish's original rudimentary (awful, as in kind of 3rd rate Micky Mouse guide; in those days you knew you were with the far less expensive Dish as opposed to DirecTV's far superior guide) NO PICTURE in quadrant possible guide like in the 2700. However, years later, Dish sent a software update and the old, ugly guide on the 4700 was "magically" replaced with the then new guide design with picture in quadrant that is still used on the 50X's, 510, 301, and 311's. That was a HUGE upgrade and improvement over the 4700's guide.
However, I wouldn't hold out much hope for a complete change in guide appearance like above. Something tells me they don't want to go down that complex road. In addition, I believe the 922's guide is really the Sling Guide and while the 922 has sling built in, the older boxes do not, IF that is one technical hurdle. I would love the 922 type guide on my HD boxes, but I won't count on it. It really would be a huge upgrade, especially for my mother, as she is an older lady who would find it much easier to find her channels by both logo and channel search/selection by channel name as she has a hard time remembering the numbers. And, no, she does not want to use the Favorites list feature because she feels she may miss something if she can't see all the channels. Nice to dream though.