Yeah I use HDMI-CEC to turn on and off my TV from the Apple remote.

I use an HD HomeRun and the app Channels to watch local antenna TV via the Apple TV, so no need for channel buttons.

I do wish that the Apple TV volume buttons worked without HDMI-CEC so I could use those to control the volume when playing games. That and the occasional need for the Input button are the only reasons I keep the TV remote handy.

The fatal flaw of CEC, at least with my particular setup, is that there is no way to play music on my receiver via the Apple TV while having the TV off. When CEC is enabled, turning on the receiver turns on the TV, and turning off the TV turns off the receiver. It’s insanely frustrating, but hey, how could it know when I really don’t want to turn off the receiver?

my receiver (denon x1400) doesn't turn on the tv when it turns itself on, but the tv turns on the receiver and turns it off. i've set it up a long time ago but IIRC it was configurable.

I think that's approximately the issue with my setup as well (I also have a Denon receiver). I believe I settled on only disabling CEC on the TV. Thus waking up the Apple TV does turn on the receiver, and putting it to sleep turns off the receiver. I only have to manually turn the TV on and off, which isn't so bad. Ideally I would be able to configure it so that all CEC controls were active except that manually turning off the TV did not turn off any other device.