Go D10-100; I've seen where the 200/300 are supposed to work but.....
Give Value Electronics a call. They hooked me up with 4 D10-100s about 2 months ago.
I use Sage as my PVR. In fact I have another PVR-500MCE due in today -- unless UPS SNAFUs the package like last time.
I had to get a 6-port add-in serial card since my AN7 board only has 1 asyn serial
You should use DTVControl app to verify that you don't have any PHY problems either before using a PVR app. Since I had a bunch lying around, I just use the Cisco console adapters and the standard 4p4c handset cable. Works out of the box
The current beta version of Sage has the required DLL but may need to add a couple of reg hacks (possibly, some do and some don't).
I'd just skip blasting. It's asinine unless that's your only option.
A SageTV user has reported sucess with a 200 and I read where a ReplayTV guy got a 300 working as well. The tech sheet below shows the command syntax and other 'bits'. Granted, I don't have a -200 or -300 and I, as you have stated, have been lead to believe it was broken in those OE'd boxes; however it appears to be fixed. And there's even more interesting info I found (see below).
In fact, the H10 and D11 are supported as well (well the D11 reference architecture anyhow ). Since they are USB equipped, they require a USB to serial dongle, check the link below. R15 support is to be added in a future firmware update --> http://www.sbcatest.com/installers_help_d10_peculiar.pdf pg3