Well, maybe not. But if the Japanese government can move to train experts to help the populace understand their phones, then maybe there’s a secret organization out there that helps people program their VCRs (or similar) as well. See Japanese to train experts to help puzzled mobile users – Stuff.co.nz.
Of course, maybe creating complicated and unusable technology should be a crime instead? Do remote control designers ever actually use their products?
Related link: consumer.org.nz: Home > Appliances > Video cassette recorders > Programming and tuning