Not sure if this is still the case, but back when I was at Apple the program that triggered when you pressed a button on an Apple remote pointed at a Macintosh was just a giant AppleScript file that, at the top level, was a giant `if...else if...` statement to try and determine which application had the foreground so that the appropriate action (e.g. next track for iTunes, next slide for Keynote, next chapter marker for QuickTime, etc.) could be triggered.
Interesting! The only .scpt files I can find in /System are Automator actions or in Script Utility itself, and of those the only one that seems relevant is Library/Automator/Initiate Remote Broadcast.action/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt, which seems like something else. Hopefully that means they fixed it (if someone with an apple remote wants to run opensnoop and double-check that would be cool!)
