"IR Sensor 31 inches away.."

Thats very close Drueb. The narrow crazy upfiring angle is more likely to miss. My efforts with this remote seemed to succeed more at a greater distance 10-12'. Closer i got, the worse the response success rate. Theres more going on here though. Ive had other remotes fail a command for various reasons, we all have, but ive never had a remote send a command that is counter to what im trying to do.
The volume up command that gets sent while you are pressing "Down" (and vise versa), is similar to an issue i repeatedly had where i was using the 5 way button "up" command, only to have it go "down".