The new HD GUI is MUCH better than the SD blue/white guide. From an H21 to an H24... they all run at fast speeds. It really brings new life into the older equipment.
Though on the video they do make it look better than it really is. It does not have all of those Apple like screen animations. Scrolling in the guide (time or channel) is animated nice, but the cover art doesn't "flip" into the view and the blue background doesn't have any of that animated shimmer around the edges by the black borders. Selecting stuff is smooth but not AS smooth as the video would have you believe. Other on screen elements like TVApps, MIX channel selection buttons, DirecTV ACTIVE, Local Weather, Game Lounge, etc... still look the same as they do today. Hopefully those are slated for a future update. It's amazing how much better the text looks in the HD resolution. You can really tell a difference between the guide and something like ScoreGuide for example. Also YouTube still only plays the 480p version of the videos despite 720p or 1080 versions available on the computer.
Verizon did the same thing "doctoring up" their FiOS IMG 1.9 video. Yes the GUI is much better, but it's not as liquid like an iPad app for example. Maybe the next version will add some polish with screen transitions.
Functionality is good. I only have a problem with some local ad's not skipping using 30SKIP. I hear that's not a problem with 30SLIP though. Maybe it's in the local ad file and there's an improper timecode or the length of the video is not correctly determined or specified the same way a recording is. 30SKIP is precise and without proper timing information in the file it can fail.