I've lurked here for quite a while and gleaned a lot of useful information (thank you to all the CF members/contributors) but have never had anything to contribute until reading this thread.
I've been using Kodi in most of its guises since soldering an xecuter chip in my original xbox and installing XBMP.
Firstly when it comes to hardware you get what you pay for, with the possible exception of the Amazon devices which bring their own problems (low memory and storage for a start) be prepared to have buggy firmware, a lack of support and having to throw out your device in 6-12 months time when the manufacturer brings out another device if you buy a cheap Android box.
Next I'd say despite what many people tell you Kodi is not a cord cutters paradise, at best if you want to go down the copyright infringement route it can complement your legitimate services but as I've posted on other forums do not believe you can cancel your cable/satellite and use Kodi exclusively, the addons you are using are made by people making them in their spare time, all will break, quite often the addon author will mend it but at some point they will give up.
A good example of this is the recent most popular addon Genesis, the author has decided to give up on it because its too popular and the fixes he applies last a matter of hours until the streaming sites change things again because their servers are flooded.
You also should know the quality of most streams is not a patch on broadcast or legitimate streaming sites HD, they may say 720P or 1080P which would technically correct because of the resolution used but the bitrates are extremely low with a 720P movie probably coming in with a file size or around 800MB.
I would also urge people not to buy "fully loaded" boxes, an hour or two's reading would glean most people the information to do things for themselves without paying some shysters exhorbitant mark up for spending 10 minutes installing things for you.
And please please do not pay anyone for any Kodi service or addon, even if they start with a legitimate payment service like Paypal sooner or later that payment method will get closed down and you will end up giving criminals access to your card details in the clear without encryption if you continue using the service (do not ever give any card details to these people without a well known 3rd party payment processor).
Now having said all of that my whole home is for want of a better word Kodified, imho there isn't a better piece of software to display and play my local media and to play the legitimate services that I pay for which are compatible.
My TiVo box pretty much only gets switched on for live sports on BT or Sky but my Kodi devices are on all the time, BBC Iplayer is far better through Kodi than Tivo, the radio I want to listen to comes via the TuneIn addon, using Kodi for NBC Sports is like chalk and cheese compared to the browser or app versions, ESPN College Players video is markedly better via Kodi, YouTube doesn't have the best interface but again the video playback is much better, and I get to listen to the ITunes podcasts I want with that addon without sullying my devices with ITunes
