A little late getting into this thread, but though my 2 cents may be of worth. I, too, camped many years with a Dish 500 and was pretty happy with it (on a tripod). Then, HD came along and as you know, most of that on 129. So, I bought a 1000.2 and started using that with my 211k. I agree with the above poster that a 1000.2 isn't any harder to align that the D500. I just use a cheap meter and cover the outer LNBs with tin foil. I also have the Dish Pointer app on my android and it gets me pointed in the right direction (pun intended). Since you were doing that already, you can figure the rest. And, I've never worried about theft, guess just the dish is not the real point with the "bad guys".
Then we got the itch to get a new 5th wheel and I had the Winegard Travler added to my purchase. After looking at the pictures of your "crank up", it looks like to me it's exactly like the Travler as far as the base goes. They are pretty "pricy" but it's totally automatic and done in about 5 minutes tops. So, replacing your crank up with a Travler would be a major improvement. Check Camping World, they had them on sale recently for about $1200. We even took the next step and just had the 5er done with the Hopper/Joey as well as the house and it works great with that setup.
Just sayin'