I would have thought 20 favourites would be enough for most people.
I don't bother too much with favourites, I know roughly where channels are on the odd occasion I decide to wander through the EPG. There are two main requirements for watching TV in my eyes, a good way to find what to watch and a good platform to watch it on.
The ideal platform for watching TV at this time is Sky+ with the ability to easily record programmes in broadcast quality for watching when you want to watch them. It is so easy to set a programme to record and if it is a series you can automatically select all future episodes. The sooner NTL have something to compete with this the better it will be for customers who choose NTL for DTV.
Deciding what to watch is a breeze with digiGuide (link in my sig). It is far better than any listings mag or EPG and has brilliant search functions and colour coded favourites markings. Check it out for free.
The ideal solution would be to have DigiGuide linked via the internet to your STB so that you can sit at your computer with a cuppa and decide on your viewing for the next week, press enter and it would be all set up. Come up with that NTL and a decent PVR system which maintains picture quality far better than the NTL service that I dropped and I could be tempted to drop Sky and return.