Craig, Lois,
thanks for answering... of course I'm hoping that some folks involved in NUC design decisions are also reading here from time to time. 
@Craig: of course I understand your concern, "expensive" in terms of board space.
I fully unterstand that trade-offs are required. I just wanted to encourage Intel to really design a box specifically for multi media and HTPC needs. I see that NUCs with i5, i7, with dual DisplayPort, with 2x 
PCIe mini are actually in the pipeline. So there seems to be actually board space for features nobody in the HTPC world would ever need.
Ok, lets prioritize. At least the CIR header with a built-in IR receiver (that is able to wake up the box from S5) would be really appreciated. 
Thanks for listening,
Diddle.