Well I never had Primestar, but my brother n law did. What I liked most about it was the remote. Each button had its own group of channels...news, music, movies, sports etc. VERY nice! Why don't we see that anymore?
When I was working at Radio SHack late 95 we were one of the "beta" markets to see if Primestar would sell. Sold a bunch of them on one line
"Univision 24 hour a day"
We had a fair amount of Spanish people and the local cable company had Univision on from 6a-6p then PPV from 6p-6a. The fact they could watch "Sabado Gigante" on Saturday nights now was the reason they bought it.
Although it did suck explaining it to a 8 year old (as it seemed like they'd come in groups of 8-10 people and only the child would understand English and they would translate)