Remember you can't learn from an RF remote at all, so get the IR/RF issue figured out first.
While it's great that the 20.0 remote can learn and that you're happy with yours, many cheaper and very reliable remotes can also learn. Many cheaper remotes also have more devices, activity macros, device specific macros, shifted functions, device specific volume punch thru, key copy, key move, backlighting, discrete code entry, PC programmability and many other things that are impossible on Dish remotes.