After speaking to several Dish support people who denied that any of these issues even existed, I got the following info from another support person. I can't confirm that it is accurate but here's what he said...
1) He said that despite the Joey 4 having a menu item for turning on IR remote reception "for compatibility with universal remotes," the Joey 4 lacks an IR sensor so that is impossible. If true, this would seem to rule out the Joey 4 ever working with an IR-only universal remote. However, someone on DBStalk posted a pic of the Joey 4 circuit board from an FCC application, which clearly shows an IR sensor. That contradicts what the Dish support rep just told me, unless the sensor is missing or nonfunctional in production units or disabled via software/firmware.
2) He said that Dish's contract with Google lapsed, despite the Dish website specifically promoting Google Assistant functionality on Hopper+ and Joey 4. This would explain why no Dish product appears on Google's list of compatible devices anymore, and why I could not find the functionality or setup options in the Joey 4 menu that were described on the Dish site. While I could get Google Assistant to "see" a Joey 4 it would do nothing, and while I managed to get it to pause my Hopper+ I could not even get it to resume playback. So whatever residual functionality is left over seems to be half-baked. This eliminates the option of using Google Assistant as a voice-controlled workaround if you do not want to use the 54 remote.
3) The aspect-ratio issue seems to have been improved by Dish; the couple of channels that previously stretched the display no longer do. A manual override would still be useful in cases where that happened again.
4) The rep claimed that some interoperability improvements are actively in the works. Not sure if that means some sort of universal remote compatibility or reinstating/fixing Google Assistant, or both, or something different. I hope it is true. It's been a long time since the Joey 4 came out, so in my mind either that means the fix is taking a long time, or they've put it on the back burner (or no burner at all). I'm not sure why they can't just use the same commands on the Joey 4 as the Joey 4K used, and then many of their customers' universal remotes would instantly work again (including all of the Harmony remotes).
Until they fix this, you cannot use any universal remote to access the Joey 4's home page, main menu, DVR, or any of its Google TV based functions (including streaming), so it's severely crippled. The "back" button also doesn't work, so while you can get into the channel guide, you can't exit it except by choosing a channel and clicking on it, which is a bit clunky. Ironically, this means anyone using a universal remote can't get to the Joey 4's streaming apps, which was the main selling point for the Joey 4 in the first place. I guess I will live with these limitations for now, keep my Dish remote handy for DVR use, and keep using my TV's built-in streaming apps, in the hopes that the the last rep who said a fix is on the horizon is correct. Until/unless that happens, I seriously regret having "upgraded" to Hopper+ and Joey 4.
