Apple TV Remote A1294 no longer working with Catalina; can no longer unpair old remote

Hey this remote was like a dream come true for a long time. Without any fancy setup, just using a Flirc receiver I was able to control the system volume which incidentally changed the volume of my RME interface to which everything audio in the house is connected. Around the time I was forced to update from Mojave to Catalina recently (because both Signal and Plex apps up-broke themselves), the remote started going through batteries like an unsupervised child through breakfast cereal. I was led to believe that this was a physical problem with the internal switches making continuous contact after years of use and advised to douse the thing in contact cleaner, work it around and let it evaporate. No dice.

Finally I bit the bullet and ordered another of the same remote, purportedly new in the box somehow. Couldn't get it to pair. It would do SOMETHING at first, but not what I wanted. Also I:

Messed with the Flirc software

Messed with reboots

Removed the flirc software entirely

Tried different usb ports

Tried using the original remote with a fresh battery to unpair before pairing the new one

All failed, and then when following yet another recommendation, i looked for the "unpair" option in the Security & Privacy under the General tab... and... it's not there anymore. Now I know pairing happens on the computer side of things. Once paired, that computer is mated for life and will accept no other pairing requests. Well now it seems I'm completely dickered. My computer is committed to a dead remote, with no way to tell it.

Sometimes, the option still exists somewhere even though the user-serviceable button was taken away. I would LOVE to know if there's a "true" I can edit to say "false" somewhere deep in a plist file kext archive. I just don't think I'll manually ever find which file might have it. Anyone? Based on a LOT of searching, I'm probably the only person who has this problem. But I can't describe how freaking happy it made me while it was working!

I even tried resorting to the old Retune app, but alas, since iTunes became Music, that's apparently bricked as well. .. and by the way, the phone that was paired as an iTunes remote was removed by the "upgrade"

I might need to just get the Siri version of the remote. I can if that will fix things. Then I can return this IR remote (the silver one) AND I guess get rid of my Flirc