Thought I'd throw my 2 cents in here, it's been awhile since I've visited SatGuys.
I've been with D* for about a year and a half. While I wasn't super disappointed, I was on about a 3-month problem cycle. In other words every 3 months they came out to replace something. I went through 3 LNB's - they must have terrible QC on those.
Anyway, my HR-20's hard drive bit the dust a week ago, and I had an infuriating call with D* in which they walked me through removing batteries from my remote. This irritation caused me to look up what uverse offers existed. I was able to get $300 cash back by talking to their livechat.
Anyway, I have both active at the moment and I can say a few things:
1) I completely agree with technikal's brief review. I don't like the way skip works, their remote stinks (but I use a Harmony), and their VOD stuff is both low quality and a poor selection.
2) Objectively I think Uverse HD quality is better. No I haven't run any tests. However I've watched the lovely ladies on HDNet and a few programs on HD Theater, and I'm impressed. I've always felt D*'s picture was a little soft.
3) The 6mb Uverse package is performing better with standard web browsing than the 9mb Cox package I was on. Although it's less bandwidth, latency seems far, far better - it feels like I"m on broadband again, no more waiting 10-15 seconds for a page to load.
4) Apparently phase 2 rolled out the day I got my installation. The installer was briefly confused when the box he just hooked up said downloading update. Then he said something like "Oh, phase 2 must be out now". Apparently they've been waiting for it for awhile and didn't know it was coming. I'm not familiar with how it worked before, but the menus and guide are decent. It's no TiVo but I've come to accept the fact that nothing will be.
I haven't canceled D* yet. I'm waiting a week or two to make sure everything keeps working well. But, so far I'm pretty impressed. I always hate changing providers and learning something new, but so far it seems like it was a good move.