ir repeater fustration?

Sounds strange. We've put in quite a few of those and haven't had problems similar to those you're describing.

Are you using the pre-made cable from the receiver to the connecting block? Or are you extending it? Are certain components more problematic than others? You could try swapping emitters around if certain ones are more problematic than others. What type of universal remote are you using? You could also try to put some IR Sheilds on the components to eliminate interference. Here are some from Xantech SnapAV makes them too, but for some reason I'm having a little difficulty finding a link for you.

If you do want to try some other type emiter the Xantech Visible Emitter is probably your best bet. But I'm not sure that will make an appreciable difference, if it makes a difference at all.

This would be my suggestion as well if you haven't already done it. If you used to just point your remote at the rack, it must be visible and in line of sight so the components could easily be getting noise when you point the remote a different direction (even nearly 180 away from it just because IR can and does reflect/etc). The extra noise, reflections, etc probably weren't enough to make the remote work, but they're enough to interfere with the repeater's commands. Just black electric tape over the emitters should be enough to block out any extraneous IR interference...then if it works, you can get a less-ugly solution such as the little covers.