Need help deciding AZbox Premium vs IPbox 9000

I was about to pull the trigger and order an IPBox 9000 but suddenly it's out of stock from 3 of the places I had short listed to purchase from. When I enquired when they would be in stock again neither seemed interested.

In the meantime I have been reading more about the AZbox which seems to be getting enthusiastic comments about it. I'm now not sure what to go for.

The IPbox seems to be better supported and more established. The Azbox is very new an I'm worried that it may not last. So to help decide I need some answers please.

1) Will Enigma2 work on AZbox? If not, will it come?
2) In the AZbox manual it states it will only record to a max of 1 hour for timeshift. Is this true? It seems too restrictive. What if I need more than an hour?
3) I keep reading that the AZbox is better technology, but what's actually better? Is it the chipset, tuners, or software?
4) On the YouTube videos of the AZbox, channel switching seems very slow. Is that still the case with the latest firmware?
5) The user interface seem very clumsy for the AZbox (only judging from what I see on youtube). It seems like you need a lot of button presses to get to various functions. Is this correct or did I get the wrong impression?
6) There seems to be a lot more development on the IPBox firmware and plugins than AZBox. Will the AZBox also have non-official 'tweaked' firmware available?
7) Will it be possible to view Sky on the AZbox (I have a free to view Sky card). Does the card reader even work?

The AZbox Premium price is better than the ipbox 9000 but it also looks a lot cheaper and the design looks a little tacky which is a shame. Looks like something from China in the early 80s. But if the AZbox is far superior then I can overlook how bad it looks.

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks for the reply Rocknroll. It's reading all these forums that's making it more difficult to make a decision. Like you say, you get a distorted view.

With regards to your 3 variables when deciding:
1) I find comparing hardware specs difficult as it's not always clear what hardware is actually used. I know the AZbox uses a different chipset to the IPbox but which is better or is it more how well the firmware manages the hardware that's more important? Also with the tuners. What brands are being used and how do they compare sensitivity wise? These sort of things are so difficult to figure out without back to back testing.

2) From what I can see the AZbox seems to be putting out firmware releases quite frequently and the plugins are coming on strong so seems to be catching up. Being totally new to this, it's difficult to make an informed decision as I'm not always clear or understandt what I'm looking at or the significance of one thing over another. But yes, what's first class hardware with rubbish firmware or no development. For me usability is a high priority. An overly complex GUI or menu structure would be very annoying after a while.

3) Well this is the answer we'd all like to know. These things are moving so fast that I think you would need to revise your guess almost weekly.

It would be nice to hear from a user that uses both as to what their opinion is.