Downside of Alpine is all their stalk controls are digital and cost around £100 each just for the cable, you can get a connects2 cable but they are not guaranteed to work, the first or even the fifth one might work...I've got this Alpine CDA-117ri, which I'm very impressed with.
I've got full stalk control and the dash display works too, but getting hold of the adapter to make all that happen isn't easy.
I want this one.
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_874331_langId_-1_categoryId_165474
EDIT: I didn't read all your post...