Personally I don’t mind using a remote to navigate menus; dedicated, physical buttons can in many cases make things easier. What I absolutely despise, however, is the latency between said button presses and the actual acknowledgment on-screen.
In my experience, the latency on cable TV boxes, Smart TVs, and in-flight entertainment systems has progressively gotten worse, not better over the years.
This latency, when coupled with a car’s touch screen is even worse.