I like the guide, but largely because the Apple TV remote track pad is not that precise I am constantly overshooting and accidentally going into the top menu bar or the side bar and then instead of moving to a new row or column, I end up either in a new section or a new set of channels. It seems more intuitive to require hitting the 'menu' button to enter the menu bar or side bar and this would avoid this problem I have to believe many others experience.
Also, as has been mentioned many times by others, page up/down/right/left shortcuts would be helpful in general and also would help reduce the above problem