thanks for the help everyone. I switched to FTR and although it seemed like a lot of work it was worth it. The scheduling is far more powerful and it has fixed my scheduling issues and handles the use of my tuners much better.
My first impression was that the configuration was absolutely daunting. It took me months to get my MP somewhat stable..but the scheduling never worked properly for me.
FTR, once you get it configured, seems to make life a lot more simple. My wife much prefers the setup now that the recording schedules are a lot easier to understand. Also, having the decent web interface means that your wife/kids can schedule things easily from a computer, with MP the web interface never let me change the options I needed to change.