there appear to be leftover traces and mounting pads on the displayboard for one LED near the knob. I am hoping to use that for simple installation.

Today I disassembled one of my players, and desoldered the IR daughterboard as well (the little PCB above the knob that holds the LED and two IR modules).

The traces on the main board that appeared to be for a resistor and LED are, in fact, for a resistor and LED. It appears that the original layout was to have the IR module on the main board (there are unused pads for it there), and the throbbling LED down below the knob, again on the main board. At some point, the design changed, and they added the tiny daughterboard to hold the LED in a new position, along with the IR receiver, and the new IRDA transceiver.

EDIT: Actually, there are also pads for the IRDA on the main display board as well.. so I wonder if the whole point of the daughterboard was just to move the throbbing LED to the top? Mmm.. no wonder this thing was expensive to build!

So, I soldered in a resistor (1K) and LED, and turned it on. Sure enough, it simply behaved identically to the regular throbbing LED. Then I cut the top trace from the new LED, and connected to the button illumination control signal, and.. it works just fine as such. Pics to follow.

Here's a photo of the main display board, with the IR daughterboard removed: