I have a older model, Alpine 7894 that has never given me a problem since I bought it. I have owned 3 different alpines before this one, and never experienced any issues with them.
Unfortunately, Alpine does not make steering wheel remotes which sucks in my opinion. I really miss having a steering wheel remote, like the one I had when I owned a Kenwood unit.
Get a current model with mp3 functionality. There are also two ways to intergrate a ipod into a alpine be it the $100 module plug in or adaptor thru a cd changer input.