yes mediamonkey rules. It's also the best fit for VoxCommando. iTunes is OK for some people, but I don't like it. The only reason I have it is because I have an ipod.
XBMC is pretty nice for video music and photos and has nice skins and lots of addons, but I'm not sure how stable the pvr situation is with it. I know that it is supported in the latest builds though, and in the skin Aeon MQ3 there is pvr support as well.
MediaPortal is supposed to be really good for PVR stuff (in fact I think maybe XMBC is actually tapping into the mediaportal PVR server) and we are working on a plugin for mediaPortal that should give you decent control, but it will probably be a while before it is as well supported in VC as XBMC is.
If you need to automate any of this stuff in a way that VC can do, or control it with a remote etc. then use EventGhost. VC and eventGhost talk to each other and get along nicely.