I know this is an old thread, but I'd have to agree with TALON1973.
I understand that the terms say that you need a subscription to use the SKY+ features, but it doesn't make it fair. I paid £300 for my SKY+ HD box in addition to my subscription, at the same time SKY offered me the standard SKY box for £50, therefore I paid £250 extra for the recording hardware.
Therefore extending the mobile phone analogy, IMHO, it's not like buying phone from amazon without sim, and expecting to make calls, it's more like buying a smart phone from amazon and having all of the "smart" features disabled when I take the sim out, even if the smart features are independent of mobile data.