These are just the initial comments from a nobody on these forums, so take it for what it's worth (near nothing).
My degree is in electronics engineering, but it's the digital side. I haven't a clue on the analog/RF side of things. Also, I'm a software developer. I could do a custom receiver hardware (digital side) + software if someone could handle the analog and RF stuff.
That being said, I doubt there'd be enough demand to make such a project worthwhile at the price it'd have to be sold at...
You have to consider for something with a small run... I have no idea how big Sat Guys is, but even if you could sell 100 units. I'd be surprised if you could get a final design done for $10k and that's not accounting for people's time investment.
So you take 100 units and divide that by $10k and you're going to have to add $100 to the cost of each receiver just to cover prototyping expenses. Then add in however much the time of the people working on the project is worth, then the cost of the parts, etc. and you're better off with a semi-custom receiver.
Say take a single board computer or even an existing dev kit, add in the RF stuff and maybe an mpeg decoder hardware (depending on whether that's the best approach cost wise), add in IR receiver, AV connectors, a decent looking box and you're done.
Less prototyping costs, less time from the designers, but a higher production cost. In such small quantity you're probably further ahead with a higher per unit cost and lower prototyping cost.