All problems got considered and found moot. Don't worry it will work :-) Even while it violates IrDA specs (which is a reason we don't usually see it being done, along with power consumption reasons) IrDA transceivers always come with LED and photodiode in a module, nobody usually puts a second IR LED in just for fun, after all it's IrDA and not meant for CIR. Product requirement specs, you know... ;-)
/j