I'm pretty sure that doesn't work in my particular situation, on two separate levels. 1: When I say "off", it's really not off, it's just putting the receiver into standby mode, where it turns off its user interface but keeps recording shows in the background. So I don't think the USB ports shut off in that case. 2: Even if it did, "pulling the plug" on my stereo has the opposite problem, where when you plug it back in you still need to bring the stereo out of its own standby mode with the remote (and then reset which input it's on).

I think my real solution is to program my current one-for-all compatible remote to fit the new receiver, or shell out for a harmony. Then I can do macros for everything I want to do.