MCE is a bit annoying in that if you have two consecutive programs on the same channel, it ties up two tuners during the overlap caused by padding. I have four tuners also, and at times they're all maxed out simply because microsoft can't think through that one a bit better and use one tuner during the overlap.
Soft padding is a disaster, as TV stations never start/finish on time. I always use a hard pad.
I use MCE to set the timers, and just use IceTV for EPG. That works well for me. I'm pretty happy. Come to think of it, I don't that IceTV supported a hard pad at the time I started out, so that's why I used the MCE to set the timers. I don't know if IceTV has added the hard pad feature since.
Cam