If you had xbmc with the media center skin and mp with the same skin without any tv section, you wouldnt be able to tell the difference. Everything in MP has the same old media center skin feel. Even the trailers plugin is like looking through folders. So as you said "MP has so much power" , it doesnt seem to be using it anywhere apart from watching live tv. A lot of ppl are happy watching their avi's of prison break etc and arent bothered about live tv. Maybe its a european thing, as a lot of stuff worth watching would have being on in the US 6 months earlier and so I'd have got it then. Im no coder so i dont have any right to complain, just thought mp would have made some changes in the way it looks since the last time I used it.
I know a lot of ppl started using xbmc again after the 360 skin came out and it seemed to give it a new lease of life. A great trailers script then came out over that as it didnt have the old look of looking through folders.
Some screenshot from the vista mce plugin - Big Screen TV Series- linked earlier
