Gonk...I should have thought of that manual, too! I looked at it, and the answer to #1 is on page 29 of the manual:

"You can program any of the memory buttons (M1~M4, Power) in AUD mode and it will send out the stored commands in Audio, CD, DVD and AUX modes. You can also program the memory buttons in SAT mode and it will
send out the stored commands in Satellite, TV, VCR and CBL modes."

Hmmm...I wonder how many *other* 'undocumented' SL-9000 features of the 950 remote work????