The X1 series has a steep learning curve and can be frustrating to start with but if you want to get the most out of what is easily the best universal remote, for the money, you will need something you clearly don't have, patience, so just send it back.

When you say it doesn’t work “consistently” implies to me it works sometimes so is probably due to the IR receiver being in a stupid place on the XG2V2 (as its intended to for RF use). Turn the XG2V2 over and look at the bottom front edge, you should see a tiny plastic rectangle along the curved edge, if the X1S Hub and/or a Blaster does not have a good line of site to it then this will be your problem. If I misunderstood your problem you could try unpairing the original remote this MAY switch it into IR mode so you can teach the X1S.

It amazes me how people constantly compare Harmony with Sofabaton, Harmony was around for about 20 years and apparently, they weren't very good to start with and were never perfect even after all that time. I'm surprised how good the X1 is now after only a few years and rumour has it the X2 will have this feature, along with more things people have been asking for. When the X1s was launched the X1 got the new features that didn't require new hardware so you never know.

As has been said this is a well known issue. If it's under warranty Sofabaton should replace it, they did with me. Contact cleaner will solve it for a while but I ended up with the new one doing it as well, and at the point of spraying it every few days and out of warranty. The only long term solution is to take it apart, strip the ball down and clean it properly. Having now done this I haven't needed to spray for a few months now. Dirt/grease gets in between the rubber outside and plastic inside of the ball and slips.

Have you found it on your Roku? Settings, System, Control Other Devises and make sure “One Touch Play” is not ticked.

Just to make life easy CEC has many different names, it's called Viera Link on my Panasonic. If your RCA is running WebOS I believe it will be called Simplink. To turn it Off on the Roku look in Settings, System, it's somewhere in there and called One Touch Play.

Have you turned CEC off? If not the Roku will be turning the TV on using CEC and then when the X1 sends the Power signal to turn On it instead turns it Off. Or if your TV has separate On and Off buttons listed (some do even if the original remote does not have separate buttons) change the X1's Power Settings to use ON rather than POWER and the TV will stay On.

For info it's not "new" it's been there a long time. Having looked this morning the word Beta is no longer there.

In "Me" on the app select Remote Firmware then tap either the top of the screen or V11 (not at home at the moment so can't check) multiple times, V12 will then appear.

Never owned one but from reading it took Harmony many years to produce a good remote and 20 odd years later they’re still not perfect.