Opinion on best hand held Remote?? Universal or

Agree with Erik.  I've used a Home Theater Master remote for the past 20 years, and it has performed flawlessly and has an impressively strong IR signal.  I also agree that the programming process is a little cumbersome and clunky, but it's not horrible and once it's done it's done.  And unlike many remotes out there my battery life is also very good, although I use Eneloop rechargeable batteries so that's less of an issue these days. 

I recommended Universal remotes to two neighbors of mine and they instead decided to buy Logitech Harmony remotes for their higher-tech programming capabilities, and interestingly both of their remotes broke within a year.  Maybe they're more robust these days, but Universal remotes, in my experience, are very reliable and solidly built. 

I don't know what you mean by "buggy" and I don't have experience with Universal's more recent offerings, but maybe it's worth putting up with some bugs rather than maybe picking up some demons.  Hope this helps and best of luck. 

I like the Harmony 650 Logitech remote. It works great, is easy to program, feels good in my hand and inexpensive to replace when I drop and break it.

After the Marantz, the Home Theater Master line was my favorite. 

The issue was really the programming took a little while to learn, but once set up was great.  They may be outdated in their firmware now as well.

I tried a Logitech with USB programming, and while the idea was decent, the execution was flawed.  Using a web based interface, which crashed or hung the remote left me supremely frustrated.  Also it didn't work like I use and listen to music and movies, which is randomly. :) 

I also have a Samsung tablet with IR control, and I could not find a good app.  They all had really difficult UI's.  Usually now I use the preamp remote plus the Oppo Media Control app on my android devices.