I haven't ever touched a Neo, so maybe the 3000 behaves the same, but my remote definitely doesn't match the blanket behavior you wrote. Different groups of hard buttons behave differently.

The channel, volume, mute, and directional buttons always send their IR, wether or not the backlight is on.

The Home, OK, Toggle, and SmartSurfer turn on the backlight on first press, and send their IR on the second. (Why would anyone want that? If you've put something on one of those buttons, you probably did it so that you don't need to look at the screen.)

The firm buttons right under the screen sometimes behave like the top group, and sometimes like the bottom. I haven't figured out what makes the difference.